Kelly Cumberland

Artist–Researcher | Expanded Drawing | Art–Science Collaboration

Artist–researcher exploring expanded drawing through art–science collaboration, reimagining cellular observation and scientific imaging into spatial and material forms.

Bio

Kelly Cumberland is an artist–researcher exploring expanded drawing as a speculative, process-led methodology at the intersection of art and cellular neuroscience. Her doctoral research, completed in January 2026 at the University of Leeds, Modes of Making, Modes of Thinking: Creativity, Biology and Drawing in the Expanded Field, was developed in collaboration with biologists Heiko Wurdak and Sabrina Samuel from the Stem Cell & Brain Tumour Group at the Leeds Institute of Medical Research based at St James's University Hospital.

Her research reframes drawing as a form of cross-disciplinary inquiry, exploring laboratory processes such as microscopy, cellular segmentation, and biological monitoring into material, spatial, and temporal forms.

Alongside her research practice, Cumberland has developed an extensive portfolio of teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and has been lecturing in art and design since 2001.

Practice

Cumberland’s work develops expanded drawing as a research methodology operating between studio practice, biological observation, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Her work explores how drawing can extend beyond the page into installation, projection, silicone surfaces, and light-based environments, creating spatial forms that emerge through processes of observation, repetition, and transformation.

Working with microscopic imaging, cellular models, and laboratory observation, she reimagines scientific processes such as segmentation, fragmentation, and cellular growth into expanded drawing forms. Biomorphic patterns, layering, and repetition become ways of exploring the dynamic structures of living systems—not to translate biology directly, but to investigate its processes through visual and material experimentation.

Across installations, objects, and sequential drawings, delicate structures expand across space and surfaces, articulating the paradoxical qualities of cellular life: fragility, resilience, replication, and transformation. Cycles of addition, removal, reproduction, and reduction generate evolving bodies of work that develop through variation rather than fixed outcomes.

Drawing frequently moves between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms, shifting across materials such as paper, thread, vinyl, ink, silicone, and projection. Through this expanded approach, drawing becomes both a material practice and a conceptual framework for exploring the invisible processes that shape living systems.

Collaborations

Cumberland’s research has developed through sustained dialogue with scientists and research laboratories.

Her doctoral project was undertaken in collaboration with the Stem Cell & Brain Tumour Group at the Leeds Institute of Medical Research, where laboratory observation, microscopy imaging, and cellular modelling informed the development of her expanded drawing practice.

This collaboration established a reciprocal exchange between laboratory and studio processes in which drawing functions as a speculative method for exploring biological phenomena and translating complex scientific observation into spatial and sensory forms.

Earlier in her career, she initiated an interdisciplinary collaboration between microbiology, radiology, and fine art departments at Leeds Metropolitan University, establishing an early framework for art–science research that continues to inform her practice.

Selected Exhibitions

2026 – Assembloids: Drawn a Life [v2.0], Atrium Gallery, St James’s Hospital, Leeds

2025 – Assembloids: Drawn a Life, PhD Exhibition, School of Design Gallery, University of Leeds

2024 – Iteration LN24, Leeds Light Night Commission (solo)

2024 – Drawing Articulations: Radical Drawing Exhibition and Symposium, Leeds Beckett University

2023 – Leeds Artists Show, Leeds Art Gallery

2022 – Vestigium Pulvis, Leeds Arts University

2021 – Cutis [fenestram], Galería Mercado Negro, Mexico

2020 – Tracing Entropy, School of Design, University of Leeds

2019 – Biomórfica, Liliput Gallery, Puebla, Mexico

2018 – Visions of Science Art Award Exhibition, University of Bath

Earlier exhibitions include projects in Spain, the United States, and the UK, including Nit de l’Art in Palma de Mallorca, exhibitions at Ideas Store Whitechapel (London), the Atrium Gallery at St James’s Hospital, and hole, a solo exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery.

Research, Publications and Presentations

Cumberland’s research explores expanded drawing as a practice-led methodology operating between studio practice, biological observation, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Publications (Forthcoming)

Chapter – Bloomsbury Handbook of Drawing Research (peer reviewed)
Article – TRACEY Journal: Drawing and Visualisation Research (peer reviewed)

Conference Papers

Drawing Research Network Conference (2025)
Drawing the Invisible: Negation, Serendipity and Transformation in Expanded Drawing and Neuroscience

Drawing Research Network Conference (2024)
Rhythm and Syncopation: Systematic and Cyclical Modes of Making in Expanded Drawing and Science

Invited Talks

MA Fine Art – University of Leeds
BA Art & Design – University of Leeds
Research Group Presentation – Leeds Arts University

Recognition

Leeds Light Night Commission – Cultural Institute, University of Leeds (2024)

Visions of Science Art Award Exhibition – University of Bath (2018)

Arts Council England Supported Exhibition – hole, Leeds Art Gallery (2003)

Professional Affiliations

Fellow – Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Think Break Create Fellow – University of Leeds