DrawNow!

Nov 9, 2025, 10:30 AM – 1:30 PM

DrawNow! with Royal Drawing School’s Nell Brookfield in Voice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena

Attributed to M.A. Ulyashev, *Sketch of the trajectory of a UFO*, 1975, Ink, Pencil and watercolor, 7 3/8 x 7 inches (18.7 x 17.8 cm). Tony Oursler Studio. Photography by Daniel Terna

Join us for a 3 hour drawing workshop presented in partnership with the Royal Drawing School’s visiting artist Nell Brookfield. Inspired by the current exhibition Voice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena which looks at “the phenomenon of UFO sightings as a universal metaphor for contact between the known (the self, in many cases) and the unknown (the Other in any guise)."

In this workshop, teaching artist Nell Brookfield leads an interactive conversation and drawing activities that invite participants to challenge their usual patterns of observation. Nell writes – As children we approach the world anew, everything is open to interpretation and discovery. As adults, our ideas of the world around us become fixed. It’s increasingly hard to break free from our patterns of seeing and thinking. How can we begin to challenge our ways of seeing? How can we see ourselves as if for the first time?

Nell Brookfield

Nell Brookfield (b. 1994, London, UK) studied MA Painting and Drawing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, from 2019-2020, after receiving a postgraduate MA-Level from the Royal Drawing School in London, UK, and a BS in Anthropology from the University College London, UK. In 2019 Brookfield was awarded a residency at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. Solo exhibitions include Duarte Sequeira Gallery, Portugal and Korea, Niru Ratnam, London, September Gallery, NY. Nell Brookfield is currently the Royal Drawing School’s Teaching Fellow in New York, a position kindly supported by Hauser and Wirth.

Nell puts her anthropologist’s eye to use in her work. She distills her observations into arresting images at once familiar and unsettling. They offer us an enhanced mirror, reflecting not only what can be seen, but also what is unseen, unspoken, hidden and repressed. Reality, but as seen in dreams and visions. She uses figures of animals as well as humans, not least to emphasis the animal in all of us. She mixes her own pigments to ensure the depth of colour, and texture, she requires, paying close attention to bodies, gestures, fabrics, hair, feathers, scales, fur and skin.

Credits

DrawNow! with Royal Drawing School’s Nell Brookfield in Voice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena workshop is made possible with funding from Hauser + Wirth.