Eleanor May Watson graduated in 2012 from Wimbledon College of Art with First Class Honours in Painting and has since completed the Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School. Eleanor lived and worked in London for many years exhibiting in London, New York, Miami and Amsterdam. She was shortlisted for The Young Masters Art Prize in 2014.

At the start of her residency Eleanor said “As a relative newcomer to Derbyshire, I have approached the Award theme ‘A Sense of Place – the Changing Faces of Derbyshire’ as a very open-ended fact finding task.  I hope to knit together a version of Derbyshire from both first and second-hand accounts.  I spent the first few weeks exploring, beginning with literature, film and paintings. And, secondly, in the narrative of objects, as a clue or prop. I spent some time talking to Jonathan Wallis at Derby Museums about their collection.  We spoke about the objects which Joseph Wright included in his portraits to better portray the sitter.

My research led me to exploring the many influential and diverse female figures from the history of Derbyshire and my final exhibition reflected something of these women through paintings of interiors, landscapes, still lifes and film stills.”