About
Sean Kaye is Joint Programme Leader for Contemporary Art Programme at British Higher School of Art & Design. Until September 2024 he was Director of Research and International Collaborations at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow. Until April 2023 he was Programme Leader for Foundation Art & Design at BHSAD, prior to this he worked for many years as Programme Leader for Foundation Art & Design at Leeds College of Art. He has taught at a range of art schools and universities including the Royal College of Art, the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow School of Art, University of Leeds, Central St Martins College of Art & Design, Liverpool John Moores University and Manchester School of Art. He studied on the Foundation Course at Cumbria College of Art & Design, then at St Martins School of Art (BA) and University of Central Lancashire (MA).
He is the co-director of the exhibitions programme blip blip blip. He recently co-curated the exhibition cycle Fully Awake for the organisation Teaching Painting. In 2021 he helped establish the International Network of Foundation Educators (INFE) of which he is a member of the current steering group. He is a member of the collaborative art practices: Doug Bowen and Sean Kaye, Leeds United and Sean Kaye and Jenny West and as part of these practices he has exhibited at venues including Camden Arts Centre, Tate Liverpool and ICA.
Sean Kaye’s research is centred around identifying and developing traditional and non-traditional modes of pedagogy that can enable students to develop independence and a degree of autonomy in relation to the art world. The focus is on exploring and developing active models of pedagogy that involve students in building bodies of knowledge alongside staff and other students. This research has been pursued through his involvement with blip blip blip, INFE and Teaching Painting.
Projects
A curatorial programme which is committed to examining and fostering relationships between contemporary art practice and art education.
The Gallery in the Expanded Field
The Gallery in the Expanded Field is a series of exhibitions that explore the possibilities of what could constitute an art gallery through presenting the programmes of a series of interesting 'galleries' some of which have now ceased to exist and some of which are still functioning.Fully Awake
Fully Awake was a six part exhibition cycle and research project that set out to examine the practices and teaching of painting from an inter-generational perspective.
Research Outputs
Body & Space
29.11.2023 – 15.12.2023
Curated by Doug Bowen, Sean Kaye & Fedor Toschev
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
Art & Language
10.10.2023
Gestures and Languages: Innovative Approaches to Artistic Thinking and Pedagogy Symposium
UniArts, Helsinki
Conference Paper
The Gallery in the Expanded Field
08.09.2023
Gathering Ourselves, GLAD Conference
CSM, London
Conference Paper
The Gallery in the Expanded Field II
14.06.2023 – 06.07.2023
Curated by Doug Bowen & Sean Kaye
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
Visual Artist’s Workbook, essays and exercises on teaching art
2022
edited by Pilvi Porkola and Denise Ziegler,
The Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki (ISBN 978-952-353-434-6)
Chapter in Book
Cover Version
03.02.2022 – 08.04.2022
https://blipblipblip.co/cover-version
Curated by Doug Bowen & Sean Kaye
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
INFE (International Network of Foundation Educators) Past, Present and Future : Collective Imaginings
03.12.2021
Online and live at FutureLab, Shanghai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTCFvLmjDr0
Invited Speaker
Fully Awake 04 Levels and Layers
10.11.2021
https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/event/talk-fully-awake-04-levels-and-layers
Henry Ward in Conversation with Rebecca Fortnum, Atsuhide Ito, Tim Johnson and Sean Kaye,
Freelands Foundation
Invited Speaker
Fully Awake 6.6
05.11.2021 – 17.12.2021
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
Holden Gallery, Manchester
Exhibition
Balancing Act
26.05.2021
https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/event/sean-kaye-balancing-acts-between-abstraction-and-figuration
Painters Talking Painting 7
Freelands Foundation
Invited Speaker
The Gallery in the Expanded Field I
25.05.2021 – 25.06.2021
https://blipblipblip.co/the-gallery-in-the-expanded-field
Curated by Doug Bowen & Sean Kaye
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
INFE (International Network of Foundation Educators) A Celebration : Foundation Projects
22.06.2021
Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjFumuyHeNg
Invited Speaker
Talent Show
03.03.2021 – 09.04.2021
https://blipblipblip.co/talent-show
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
Contemporary art, talent and the art school curriculum
31.03. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tYv47xuEuA&t=7s
Magnus Quaife in conversion with Annie Davey, Sean Kaye, Misha Levin, Harry Meadley, and John Seth.
blip blip blip, Moscow
Invited Speaker
Foundations: 100 years after VKhUTEMAS
10.11.2020 – 26.02.2021
https://blipblipblip.co/foundations
Curated by Doug Bowen, Sean Kaye & Mikhail Levin
blip blip blip, Moscow
Exhibition
The VKhUTEMAS Legacy: British Foundation courses and their link to educational avant-garde practices of the first part of the 20th century
05.12.2020
https://blipblipblip.co/the-gallery-in-the-expanded-field
Misha Levin in conversion with Sean Kaye, Geoff Teasdale, Doug Bowen, Daria Sorokina, Alyona Sokolnikova & Ksenia Efimova.
blip blip blip, Moscow
Invited Speaker
Transmitter
05.12.2020 – 13.05.2020
Curated by Sean Kaye and Magnus Quaife
FutureLab, West Bund Arts Centre, Shanghai
Exhibition
Moscow Calling 2
05.12.2020 – 13.05.2020
Curated by Sean Kaye and Magnus Quaife
FutureLab, West Bund Arts Centre, Shanghai
Exhibition
Fully Awake 02 Going Going Gone
02.12.2020
https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/event/talk-fully-awake-02-going-going-gone
Sean Kaye in Conversation with Matthew Cornford, Natasha Kidd, Zoe Mendelson and Kathleen Mullaniff
Freelands Foundation
Invited Speaker
Fully Awake
09.07.2020
Henry Ward in Conversation with Ian Hartshorne and Sean Kaye
Freelands Foundation
Invited Speaker
Fully Awake: Painting Now
26.02.2020
Ian Hartshorne and Sean Kaye
University of Hertfordshire Contemporary Art Practice Research Group
Invited Speaker
Fully Awake 5.6
06.09.2019 – 03.11.2019
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
Freelands Foundation, London
Exhibition
Fully Awake 4.6
25.07.2019 – 25.08.2019
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
ECA, Edinburgh
Exhibition
Moscow Calling
03.05.2019 – 09.05.2019
Curated by Ian Hartshorne and Sean Kaye
PS Mirabel, Manchester
Exhibition
Distant Constellations
2019
Leeds United
Castlefield Gallery (ISBN: 978-0-9559557-8-5)
Includes an afterword by Tim Brennan
Publication
Fully Awake 3.6
03/09/2018 – 14/09/2018
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
RCA, London
Exhibition
Fully Awake 2.6
02/11/2017 – 18/11/2017
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
House for an Art Lover, Glasgow
Exhibition
Fully Awake 1.6
06/04/2017 – 21/04/2017
Curated by Ian Hartshorne & Sean Kaye
blip blip blip, Leeds
Exhibition
Teaching Painting: How Can Painting be Taught in Art Schools?
2017
edited by Ian Hartshorne, Donal Moloney and Magnus Quaife
Black Dog Publishing (ISBN978-1-911164-10-4)
Chapter in Book
