K College Fine Art student Lee Devonish has been shortlisted for the 4th Cork Street Open Exhibition. This year's open submission was highly competitive, attracting over 2,100 submitted works by 766 artists. The shortlisted mixed media painting, entitled "Future Ex Husband", took a decade to complete, and its creation is part of the artist's life story.

Lee is preparing to commence the BA Top Up course in September at the college's Henwood studios in Ashford, but the degree will have been 12 years in the making. Lee studied A-Level Art at Queen's College in Barbados, and in 1999 she enrolled at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, USA. While at university she discovered ceramic art and slip casting, and moved the focus of her work away from drawing and painting to 3 dimensional media.

A summer holiday back at home in Barbados led to unexpectedly dropping out of university, getting married within six months and moving to California briefly before finally emigrating to Kent. After several years juggling domestic life, a small ceramics studio and eventually, motherhood, art no longer had second place; it had no place at all. Later, divorcing meant being forced to sell her entire ceramics studio, and having to think carefully about what would come next. The time and circumstances were finally right to resume her formal art education with the University of Kent's Fine Art HND course at K College. Balancing full-time education with single parenthood is often challenging, but is something that Lee finds extremely rewarding.



After returning to drawing and painting as well as discovering printmaking during the HND course, Lee hopes to use the BA Top Up year to refine her practice and critical appraisal. Many of her recent paintings are portraits of friends which form part of an ongoing investigation of the portrayal of men and masculine beauty in art, as well as wider interpersonal relationships.

Recent exhibitions include The Associates at Studio 3 Gallery in the University of Kent's Jarman building. More information on Lee's work can be found at www.leedevonish.com.