I am a multi-disciplinary artist living on the edge of the New Forest inspired by folk culture and wild places.
Artist’s Statement
“I am an artist living on the edge of The New Forest. I use folklore, folksong, old customs, games and rituals to explore contemporary issues, particularly rural social and economic disparity. Country living can be a strange mix of bounty and hopelessness but when people have access to their own strong and sinuous roots, their own history and stories, they have anchorage and hope. I seek the stories that connect us and as an artist I'm thinking of different ways of pinning them up on the metaphorical village hall notice board for all to see.”
Current Works.
You Took My Joy (and I want it back) A Maidens Garland 2025 (With thanks to Lucinda Williams for the song.) Having received a Lucky Dip bursary from aspace arts earlier in the year I am making work based on an old English funerary custom of honouring a persons virginity (usually a woman or girl) by making a Virgins Crown or Maidens Garland from willow and ribbons and paper rosettes and gloves, carrying it alongside the funeral procession and hanging it in the church rafters unless it is challenged of course. Mine, made from bent willow, tea-stained sheets, string, summer grass, slits and stitchery is reminiscent of a bird cage and inside hang seven bronze clitorii like strange fruit or caged birds. It is a comment on virginity as a social construct, the language and attitudes around it and in particular Female Genital Cutting as the ultimate brutality in trying to maintain it. It is still a WIP but will be exhibited at Gods House Tower in Southampton in the autumn along with the other Lucky Dip artists work.
SMALL CURRENT TEXTILE WORK
The Tender Gaze
Old spectacles, blanket, thread, silk, ribbon, rusty pins
We are the Witches, we are, Hear The House of Smalls Edinburgh 1-30 August 2025
The Lost Babes of Wailing Wood
Vintage doilies, thread, 2025
Black Shuck Festival The Bell Gallery Bungay Suffolk 1-3 August 2025
PORTFOLIO JULY 2025
WORK & PLAY Winchester Gallery Spring 2025
Rag or tatter coats are often worn by Morris Dancers and Mummers and this one, named after the centuries old folk song The Cruel Mother, is handprinted with over 300 abortion recipes. I see this coat as being worn by a healer/purveyor of snake oil who would have travelled with a gaggle of carnivalesque performers wandering from town to village touting their wares. Of course such a thing could never have happened so publicly but women have always needed abortions whether the unwanted pregnancy stems from pleasure and PLAY, accident or force. The job of WORK of the Healer in a carnival environment combines the two elements of the title of the exhibition.
The Coat of the Cruel Mother
2023/24
Old cotton sheets, old linen jacket , tea, ink, vintage thread. Coat of the Cruel Mother. Charcoal drawing 2024
THE DOSHA 2024. Hazel rods harvested locally, tea stained calico, hessian, string,locally made charcoal, red ochre paint, vintage thread
Traditionally built bender tent as used by The New Forest Gypsy community until they were rounded up in the 1920’s and forced to live in compounds. My bender tent is named after famously photographed Theodosha Wells and she, The Dosha, has become a beast that roams the Forest asking us if it’s right for some people to have second homes when so many don’t even have one.
These Children, uninvited Oil on Board 2024 HOMELANDS New Forest Heritage Centre September 2024
These children, uninvited. Inspired by a photograph in a local history book of West Wellow with a caption telling of how these New Forest Gypsy children, living in bender tents in the village were not invited to the celebration picnic for the coronation of George VI and were not given special commemorative mugs like all the other children in the village. They were however gathered together and presented with plain mugs and then photographed with them?!?!
Theodosha Wells (from a well known photograph). Oil on organic tea towel 2024. The Stopping Place Oil on muslin 2024 Trace ( of a Forest pony) Photograph 2024 Burning Dress Photograph 2022
Poppets and a Dead Hare. Oil on Board 2023. Dancing in the May. Oil on Board 2023
The Maypole of Hopes and Dreams Still Rises in this Fallow Field.
2023 Gods House Tower Southampton Turning Point Bursary
SELF PORTRAITS
Grandaughter of a Poacher Oil on Board 2022 Daughter of a Lorry Driver Oil on Canvas 2022 Song of the Lane Oil on Board 2022 Portrait of my daughter. Once I was Queen of the May Oil pastel and paint on paper 2023
STITCHERY POKERY
Charcoal drawings on tea-stained calico then worked with some stitchery pokery using second hand thread and backed with antique French linen Vintage Frames 2024/25
Ride a Cock Horse
2024
The Garland King
2024
Protection Spell 2025. A Virgin’s Crown 2024. Plough Girl 2024 Holding the Hare 2024 Featured in Earth Pathways Diary 2026
Queen of the Whirl cover artwork for Eliza Carthy 2022
I was so excited to be commissioned by the almighty Eliza Carthy to do the artwork for her 25th Anniversary album Queen of the Whirl!
Client
Name here
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CV TRACY DOVEY JULY 2025
1984 Art Foundation Southampton Institute 1985-87 HND Film and Animation
1987-1991 Freelance for Felix Film , Passion Pictures, Grandslamm, Universal Pictures
1996-1998 HNC Garden Design Sparsholt Winchester
2018 Royal West of England Academy Bristol Open Exhibition
2020 Royal West of England Academy Bristol Open Exhibition
Work in various galleries including The Young Gallery Salisbury, Fisherton Mill, Salisbury and Summerhouse Gallery, Cornwall.
2021-2022 MA Fine Art Winchester School of Art
2022 Commissioned for Hares of Hampshire public art project
2022 Commissioned by Eliza Carthy for artwork for Queen of the Whirl Anniversary album.
2022 Recipient of Turning Point Bursary from aspace arts
2022 Wells Art Contemporary Open Exhibition
2022 Indefinite Perception Inigo Rooms Somerset House London Joint Group exhibition
2022 Shortlisted for Artists Residency King Johns House Romsey
2022 MA Fine Art Exhibition Winchester School of Art
2022 MA Curation Exhibition Winchester Gallery
2022 Young Gallery Members Exhibition Salisbury
2022 Graduated with Distinction MA Fine Art
2023 Fallow Fields Turning Point Bursary Exhibition Gods House Tower
2023 Members Exhibition Young Gallery Salisbury
2023 The Graduate Art Show William Gallery Soho London
2023 Brisons Veor Residency Cape Cornwall
2023 We are the Witches Exhibition The House of Smalls Chipping Campden
2024 Between the Lines Exhibition The House of Smalls Chipping Campden
2024 Rebirth and Regeneration in a Post Pandemic Society Exhibition Southampton
2024 HomeLands Joint exhibition with Kim Thompson New Forest Heritage Centre Lyndhurst Hampshire
2024 Lantern making workshops in schools community project funded by Culture in Common
2024 Young Gallery Members Exhibition Salisbury
2025 Work and Play Exhibition Winchester Gallery Winchester School of Art
2025 Lucky Dip Bursary awarded by aspace Southampton
2025 Sherfield English Community Village Tatter Jacket Bollard Cover funded project
2025 The Pillar Stories 8 week youth art project with St Wins church in Totton. Funded by Culture in Common.
2025 Rockbourne Roman Villa Collaborative Drawing workshop at event for home educated young people. Funded by Hampshire Cultural Heritage.
2025 Holding the Hare selected for Earthpathways 2026 Earth Pathways Diary
2025 The Tender Gaze selected for We are the Witches, We are, hear. Group exhibition. The House of Smalls Edinburgh 1-30 August 2025
2025 The Lost Babes of Wailing Wood Black Shuck Festival The Bell Gallery Bungay Suffolk 1-3 August 2025
Since September 2022 The Village Hall Draw weekly drawing workshops and regular life drawing classes and community arts projects at various village halls and venues around The New Forest.
