Heather Boxall

Heather Boxall, born in Gravesend, Kent in 1960, grew up along the southeast Kent coast and now lives and works in West Yorkshire. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Winchester School of Art (1981) and an MA in Printmaking from Bradford School of Art. Her artistic practice spans painting, printmaking, and stained glass, unified by a deep and longstanding fascination with the expressive and conceptual power of colour.

Heather was awarded the Ironbridge Fine Arts Exhibition Prize in our 2024 Printmaking Competition, selected in recognition of the strength, originality, and technical skill in her printmaking practice. We are proud to present her solo printmaking exhibition as part of her prize in Summer 2025.

While her wider body of work includes painting and stained glass—mediums through which she explores light, colour, and materiality—this exhibition focuses specifically on printmaking, and in particular, her ongoing project titled Colour Standards. Initiated in 2018, this series is inspired by the British Colour Council Dictionary of Colour Standards (1951 edition), a historic reference guide that featured 240 colour swatches woven from silk thread. Originally produced to create consistency in the textile and decorative industries, the dictionary now serves as a springboard for Heather’s vivid exploration of colour as cultural memory and personal perception.

Drawing from contemporary colour theory and the insights of neuroscientists such as Anya Hurlbert, Heather’s work investigates how colour affects us emotionally, visually, and cognitively—emphasising that it is both universal and deeply personal. As Hurlbert notes, colour is “slippery” and subjective, shaped by individual minds and experiences.

For this exhibition, Heather presents a new series of fine art prints that reinterpret the historic colour swatches, with the ambitious goal of reproducing all 240 colours through the medium of print. Her meticulously crafted prints invite viewers to reflect on how colour shapes both how we see and how we feel—bridging history, psychology, and artistic interpretation.

In addition to her practice, Heather has contributed extensively to art education. She has served as a senior lecturer in Fine Art at Cumbria University, Head of School at Bradford School of Art, and currently teaches as an associate lecturer at both Craven and Bradford Colleges. She also runs stained glass workshops in Hebden Bridge and Skipton and has over three decades of experience working with traditional leaded stained glass, taking private commissions alongside her fine art practice.