A big, public invitation to Northfleet’s creative festival.
3rd October 2026
Meet the Team
Mandy Hare
Laura Kavanagh
Joseph Atkinson
Ella Flewitt
Steven Knowles
Steven J Knowles is a multidisciplinary visual artist and community arts practitioner based between Gravesham, Kent, and the North Devon coast.
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His practice spans painting, mural-making, and curatorial projects rooted in place, memory, and everyday domestic space.
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At the core of his work is the Room Series, a body of paintings across triptychs tracing an autobiographical arc through interiors, armchairs, and television screens.
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Alongside this figurative strand, Steve produces more abstract, intimate work, including Clouds of Confidence, which emerged from an intensive year of paper-based output during a period of personal transition, and Glimpses: Lisboa, a series drawn from time spent in the city.
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His travels through Lisbon, Sicily, Norway, Frankfurt, and Indonesia feed a body of landscape and architectural work built on a signature crosshatch and grid mark-making vocabulary, while a longstanding connection to the Thames estuary and to surfing at Woolacombe in North Devon anchors his relationship to water and coastline.
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Community engagement sits at the centre of Steve's practice. He delivered the World in a Ward mural at St George's Arts Centre and continues to develop participatory projects, with outreach extending to contacts in Singapore and Canada.
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Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include a second group show in Lisbon, New York in the fall, and Amsterdam in October and November.
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He studied Environmental Design at the University of Portsmouth.
portfolio / contact-link.com
Matthew John Atkinson
Matthew Atkinson is an internationally exhibiting contemporary artist, Founder & Co-Director of Artist Surfaces, and Co-Founder & Co-Director of Clubb's Yard Studios in Northfleet.
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Born in Gravesend in 1985, Matthew's painting practice explores the psychological space between vulnerability and construction, the worlds we build to protect ourselves and the fragility that exists beneath them. His work has evolved from ethereal, nostalgic landscapes into ambiguous and emotionally charged environments, inviting reflection on the human condition. He is represented by Alessandro Albanese Gallery in Milan and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including representing the UK at the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, with solo exhibitions in Paris, Milan and Seoul.
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Alongside his painting practice, Matthew founded Artist Surfaces in 2014, a specialist manufacturer of museum-grade painting panels and stretchers used by artists, galleries and institutions around the world. Built on a commitment to craftsmanship, innovation and sustainability, the company has become internationally recognised for producing some of the finest painting supports available today.
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In 2024, Matthew co-founded Clubb's Yard Studios, creating affordable studio space and a collaborative creative hub in the heart of Northfleet. The studios provide artists with workspace, exhibitions, workshops and opportunities to connect, reflecting his belief that creativity flourishes through collaboration as much as individual practice.
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As one of the founders of Open Northfleet, Matthew is committed to strengthening the town's creative ecology by supporting artists, building partnerships and creating opportunities for communities to engage with arts and culture. His ambition is to help establish a lasting creative legacy that positions Northfleet as a place where creativity is celebrated, accessible and embedded in everyday life.
www.matthew-john-atkinson.co.uk
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www.artistsurfaces.co.uk
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www.clubbsyardstudios.co.uk
Harriet Hammond
Harriet Hammond is a sculptor, performance artist and curator from Gravesend. Working across clay, papier-mâché, resin, video and performance, her practice explores themes of surrealism, power, excess, nostalgia and consumption. Using recurring motifs of animals, food and imagined characters, her work creates playful yet unsettling narratives that question hierarchy, identity and the absurdities of contemporary life.
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Harriet studied BA Fine Art at the University for the Creative Arts before completing an MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London. Since graduating, she has exhibited nationally, with recent exhibitions including Papillon at Daston Den, OFFPRINT at Tate Modern and RIPOSTE Dinner Party Rave at Electrowerkz. In 2024, she was also shortlisted for the Cass Art Prize.
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Alongside her own artistic practice, Harriet is passionate about creating opportunities for emerging artists and developing inclusive creative communities. In 2023, she co-founded HYPERMEDIA with fellow Gravesend artist Joseph Cleary, a monthly open platform celebrating original poetry, music, film, performance and experimental work. Welcoming performers aged six to eighty-nine and attracting audiences from across Kent and London, HYPERMEDIA has become an important space for creative exchange, collaboration and first-time performers.
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Harriet is also a member of Gravy Girls, an all-female creative collective that delivers exhibitions, workshops and community events across Gravesham.
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As part of Open Northfleet, Harriet brings experience in sculpture, installation, performance, curation and public programming. Passionate about supporting young people, championing emerging artists and making creativity accessible to everyone, she is committed to helping build a vibrant and inclusive creative future for Northfleet.
Abolore Sobayo
I am a multidisciplinary artist with almost two decades of studio experience in the cultural, creative, and educational sectors.
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My creations are multifaceted, multimedia contemporary artworks; they are designed to be thought-provoking, generate robust debate as well as reference history while using the art as a tool to inspire positive change. Research is an integral aspect of my work. As such, I turn to published literature, photographs, videos, and oral histories for the mental framing of my pieces to ensure that the works also embody lived experiences.
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I relocated to the UK through the Global Talent Visa route a few (a couple) of years ago. Creativity is central to my being, creating art, teaching, sharing my vision, and mentoring young adults in their creative journey. I established an art center in one of the most deprived suburbs in Lagos, which took young adults off the street and into the studio. The center continues to strive and has been a lifeline for many young people who feel dispossessed and unheard.
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As an artist, I have created four public art installations dotted around the heaving metropolis of Nigeria, Lagos. I have had five solo exhibitions, with one recently concluded at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and participated in multiple group exhibitions across four continents. My works have gained regional, national, and international recognition. I have also participated in three international residencies; United World College, Phuket, Thailand, Creation Residency, Ballhaus Naunynstrssse, Berlin, Germany, including a recently concluded residency at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), Rochester, where I engaged the further education students.
Elle Tennyson
Elle is an artist and illustrator based in Gravesham. She is part of the team behind Gravy Girls, delivering community arts events, exhibitions, workshops and art markets that champion women creatives. In her art practice, Elle specialises in ink and bleach as well as the alternative photographic process of cyanotype, which she uses to create surreal imagery, inspired by world mythologies and folklore which she weaves together to create her own narratives. With support from Creative Estuary's Creative Development Grant, Elle was able to expand her practice to ceramics with a focus on jewellery design, and an opportunity to collaborate closely with Northfleet creatives and initiatives.