Annual Ones to Watch exhibition showcasing emerging artists at Sunny Bank Mills

Visitors to the Ones to Watch exhibition are invited to vote for their favourite artwork on display in the gallery. The Peoples’ Choice Award provides an artist with a free three-month residency space at Sunny Bank Mills, while the East Street Arts Prize will go to an exhibiting artist selected by the East Street Arts Team. The winner will receive a free month-long residency at Convention House in Leeds.

The show features work by artists across disciplines, from painting to sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography, drawing and design, with much of the work available to buy. One of the artists exhibiting this year, who has benefited from the extended open call, is Ellie Andrews, an emerging portrait and figurative artist and founder of Leeds Drawing Club. “I am very grateful for the opportunity to show my work in Ones to Watch 2025,” she says. “And I think it is a really important and positive step for Sunny Bank Mills to widen the scope as there are so many artists who are coming to art and creativity later in life.”

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Andrews studied Theatre Design at Central Saint Martin’s University of the Arts in London and graduated in 2005. “I really loved the course – and I met my husband through it, and I enjoyed living in London but after working for a while as a theatre and film designer I realized that I didn’t love it enough to pursue it,” she says. “I wasn’t sure of what to do next and then my dad suggested that I come and work in his bakery while I made a plan, so I moved back to Leeds and worked at Bakery 164.”

Alongside that, she was keen to keep her artistic practice going and set up Leeds Drawing Club in 2007, which began as an informal group and grew into a successful business offering untutored life drawing classes and workshops. While working in the bakery and running Leeds Drawing Club, Andrews gained valuable skills which she channeled into her next venture – setting up, with her husband, Cafe 164 & the Gallery at 164, in Munro House, Leeds city centre in 2011.

In addition to the hospitality offer, there was a gallery space in which Andrews programmed a series of exhibitions and other events. In 2023 she and her husband took the difficult decision to close, partly due to Covid. “It was a shame but it was the right thing to do and it was a good time to move on,” she says. “I am proud of the creative output we achieved both in terms of food and drink and artistically. We put on some fantastic exhibitions and I ended up using a lot of my theatre design skills in curating the exhibitions and events.”

After stepping away from Munro House, Andrews found new premises for her own studio and for Leeds Drawing Club in Burley. Last autumn she put on an exhibition of her own work entitled M(Other) in her studio space showcasing a body of work that explored motherhood through large-scale portrait drawings of women. The theme of maternal subjectivity and how society presents motherhood to future generations is one she is continuing to explore in her work. She is also going into schools to teach life drawing classes, taking commissions and running workshops which focus both on the mental health benefits of creative expression as well as improving drawing skills.

Andrews says that the experience of being involved in Ones to Watch has given her a sense of self-belief and validation. “This is such an exciting time for me. It feels amazing to receive recognition for my work and to feel seen and respected as an artist. It gives me a lot of confidence to continue doing what I want to do.”

Ones to Watch is at Sunny Bank Mills Gallery, Farsley until April 27. Free entry. Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm, Sunday 12noon-4pm. For more information about Ellie Andrews and Leeds Drawing Club visit ellieandrewsart.com