Biography
Anoushka Havinden is a painter and writer based in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland. She studied Drawing and Painting at the Glasgow School of Art and has worked as an artist throughout her adult life, alongside writing, teaching, and curatorial work.
Her practice centres on painting and drawing, often working in mixed media, collage,and sometimes straying into sculpture and other artforms. The work moves between abstraction and figuration, often drawing on landscape, embodied perception and remembered experience to build layered pictorial spaces.
Havinden’s work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including exhibitions in Glasgow, Ireland and across Europe through the Drawing Box network. In 2018 she undertook a residency at Cove Park in association with Dunoon Burgh Hall, and in 2020 she received the Balavoulin Art Grant.
Alongside her studio practice she is an established writer. Her poetry has received several awards including the James Kirkup Prize, the Nairn Book and Arts Festival Prize and the William Soutar Prize. She was awarded an Ignite Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust in 2020 and has published a poetry pamphlet with Red Squirrel Press.
Her public artwork A River of Names is installed at Stockingfield Bridge in Glasgow.
Havinden lives and works in Argyll.
CV
Education
Aberdeen College – Foundation Art and Design 1993-1994
Glasgow School of Art – BA (Hons) Drawing and Painting 1996-1999
Awards
2026 CHARTS Vacma award
2020 — Balavoulin Art Grant
2020 — Ignite Fellowship, Scottish Book Trust
2018 — Cove Park Residency (with Dunoon Burgh Hall)
Public Collections/Artworks
Aberdeen College Collection
A River of Names, Stockingfield Bridge, Glasgow
National Irish Visual Arts Library
Memberships
Satellite Member (Argyll) Society of Scottish Artists
Visual Arts Scotland
Selected Exhibitions
2025–2026
“Ghosts of the Pavilion” and “Icecream Dreams”, Deco, Art Department, Paisley
2025
“Wildfires and the Fata Morgana”, Into the Mirage, Six Foot Gallery, Glasgow
2024
“Our Beautiful Troubles”, Inside Out, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Ireland
2023
“My Bonnie, My Darling”, Call and Response, Glasgow Project Room (co-curator and exhibitor)
2021
Drawing Box International touring exhibition (Ireland, France, Greece, New Mexico, The Netherlands)
2021
“Untitled”, Pause, online exhibition, Society of Scottish Artists
2020
“Nervous Mermaid”, Paisley Art Institute Annual Exhibition
2020
“Tides Changing / Changing Tides”, Marine Debris, Society of Scottish Artists
2018
Cove Park Residency Show, Dunoon Burgh Hall
2017
Dunoon Connections, Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie
2016
“Berg”, Ice, Comar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
2016
“Souvenir Island”, Europa, Transition Gallery, London
2016
“Ghost Nets”, Of the Sea, Chatham Historic Dockyard
2016
Elsewhere and Other Places, Dunoon Burgh Hall
2015
20 Years of Glasgow Independent Studios, Trongate 103, Glasgow
2007
“Battlefield”, Glasgow Art Fair, Compass Gallery
2005–2009
Compass Gallery Winter Show
2005
Catterline Open Studios