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New artisitc works inspired by Sheffield's craft alcohol scene
Just as the painter William Hogarth provided one of the most memorable responses to changes in the alcohol economy during the eighteenth century (in the 1751 prints Gin Lane and Beer Street), so we've commissioned three young Sheffield artists to create pieces of work inspired by the city’s craft alcohol movement. Rather than offering pastiches of Hogarth, their contemporary interpretations will offer unique and original responses through different media and forms. These will be shown as a digital exhibition online, but also at several alcohol-related establishments across Sheffield in 2025.
(all works are copyright the artists)
Jessica Heywood
Jessica Heywood
Jessica is a Sheffield-based artist working predominantly in drawing and textiles. Her practice explores anatomical reality and liminality within the context of craft, specifically through studies of found dead animals and abstracted studies of the natural world. Labour intensive methods underpin Heywood’s practice, as they speak to the historic conversation happening throughout all drawings. See Jessica's portfolio.
Maria Marinou
Maria Marinou
Maria is a fine artist and archaeologist. A graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts and the University of Sheffield, she uses traditional mediums such as oil paints, charcoal, and pencil to create abstract and figurative paintings and drawings. The interdisciplinary connection of art and archaeology through the study of different art forms is the pivotal point of her artistic and archaeological research and practice. See Maria's portfolio.
Wemmy Ogunyankin
Wemmy Ogunyankin
Wemmy is a Sheffield- and London-based writer, poet, and visual anthropologist (photographer and ethnographic filmmaker) whose practice is rooted in research, empathy, and storytelling. Her passion lies in finding unheard stories and amplifying the many voices that are often ignored, with a special interest in unexpected subcultures, marginalised groups, and equality. See Wemmy's portfolio.
The Place of Alcohol in Sheffield’s Past, Present and Future
The Place of Alcohol in Sheffield’s Past, Present and Future
Jessica Heywood
"My drawings reference the experience of craft alcohol in 3 stages - the production, the enjoyment and the aftermath. The first drawing is based on a photo I took at Locksley Distillery of craft gin being bottled. The second is my interpretation of a Pete McKee print that hangs in The Brother’s Arms. The final image is of a disregarded can of Moonshine from Abbeydale Brewery."
Maria Marinou
“The artwork I produced for this research project consists of a triptych depicting a narrative of Sheffield’s brewing and distilling heritage and history, through maps and regional materialculture, spanning from the Bronze Age to the 1900s. It involves drinking vessels and well-known cultural objects and landmarks from historic peoples and past civilisations, illustrating how evolving cultural practices, conquests, and migration shaped local traditions, especially those surrounding ale consumption, land use, and community formation. I chose to focus on these periods because, whilst Sheffield is widely known for its steel industry, its rich and ongoing archaeological record also deserves greater attention and recognition.”
Wemmy Ogunyankin
“Guided by research on Mary Wollstonecraft and her seminal book ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, Austrian biochemist Dr Dora Kulka, a Sheffield refugee who was essential to the making of British beer and by conversations I had with Sheffield’s own Cynthia King and Martha Holley-Paquette, my photo-poem piece centres women in the Sheffield gin and beer making scene as we grapple with questions on the “meaning” of craft. I explore the significance of the body, space and place to this question, while playing with the intoxicating effects of alcohol— asking spectators to look twice while exploring and emphasising the juxtaposition between scientific objects and human joy in craft making and drinking.”
Where can I see the exhibit?
Click on the Sheffield locations below to see dates of when our artisit's works can be viewed in person across the city
Beer Mats
Beer Mats
Our artists took their work 94mm x 94mm in these custom-designed beer mats inspired by our themes. They made their debut at the Sheffield and District CAMRA Beer and Cider Fesitval on Kelham Island.
Jessica's beer mat explores the traditional role of early modern 'alewives', how they related to stereotypes of witchcraft and disorderly women, and the persistent definition of craft as female. It reworks a celebrated seventeenth-century engraving of an Oxfordshire alehouse-keeper called Mother Louse.
Maria's beer mat combines various shapes of drinking vessels, from prehistory to the present day, in a circular motif. It reminds contemporary consumers that they are participants in a long tradition of alcohol culture, heritage, and history, while the striking red and orange colour scheme references both red and black-figure pottery and Sheffield's local culinary icon 'Hendo's'.
Wemmy's beer mat was inspired by the story of Austrian refugee and biochemist Dr Dora Kulka, who crafted Sheffield’s Hope Brewery's first ever lager. She's essentially been written out of the popular beer history of the city, so this design is for her. It features 1900s newspapers that mention or advertise the brewery's flagship beer (Jubilee Stout), using a double exposure technique to highlight the ways she and other women have been written out of beer history – and the importance of looking again to find us.
Holy Herbs and the Psychoactive Revolution
Holy Herbs and the Psychoactive Revolution
An immersive installation created by Jessica Heywood for Sheffield's Festival of the Mind, which was on display at the Millennium Galleries from 19–29 September 2024. It explored the botanical dimensions of Europe's 'psychoactive revolution', the period between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries when locally produced alcohols (fermented and distilled) underwent new processes of industrialisation, and were joined by novel Atlantic commodities like tobacco, sugar, and cacao, and Asian substances like opium, coffee, and tea.
The installation represented the wide variety of plant species identified, harvested, and transplanted for these processes: hops and grains, as well as as sugar cane, nicotiana, and poppies. Jessica's interest in the natural world, and meticulous drawing style, spoke beautifully to the tradition of botanical illustration that accompanied this growth in international trade, while her use of acetate, layering, and large-scale details uncannily recreated the feelings induced by these mind- and body-altering herbs. Go behing the scenes on Jessica's Instagram.
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