Photo credit: Nick Ilott
About
Dide, pronounced like Didé or D-Day, is an award-winning oil painter, poet and composer-soprano-violinist. She was selected for the National Portrait Gallery Herbert Freehills Award exhibition, twice selected by the Royal Society of British Artists as a Rising Star, won the Society of Women Artists Young Artist Award and an International Tera Varna Talent Prize, was selected for the Women in Art Prize exhibition and longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize, and won the W&A Curator Award and the Drake Arts Award, among others. She was Art on a Postcard’s 10 highest-selling artists for International Women’s Day, and has exhibited nationally – at Messums, the Mall Galleries, the Roundhouse, the Bomb Factory, York Art Gallery and Gallery Holt – and internationally in Istanbul Turkey (at Contemporary Istanbul international art fair where she was commissioned by Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles for the 20th anniversary of the fair and at Base Istanbul at the Ritz-Carlton Residencies), Venice Italy and Sapporo Japan. She started teaching herself how to paint during a covid pandemic lockdown. She is open to commissions and collaborations. Her books (Growing, Broken Sleep Books, 2022, https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/dide-growing, and Making Sense, Verve Poetry Press, 2023, https://vervepoetrypress.com/product/dide-making-sense/?v=79cba1185463.) are available from Amazon, the publishers or herself, and have been reviewed positively in The Poetry Review and elsewhere. Some music highlights include collaborating with MIT, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Centre, Royal Ballet School, London Contemporary School of Dance, Philharmonia Orchestra, Mind, Aldeburgh Music, Alde Valley Spring Festival, Black Shuck Festival, Southwold Arts Centre, and the Brambly Hedge book series. She won scholarships and grants to study music at the Royal College of Music JD and philosophy at the University of Cambridge, whilst simultaneously visiting the Lausanne Conservatoire of Music in Switzerland. She won an Isaac Newton Bursary, an Instrumental Award Scheme Scholarship, a Dance and Music Scheme Award, an Award for Young Musicians’, a Tom Acton Trust Award, a Royal College of Music Bursary and the Freda Dinn and Ida Mabott Violin Prize for violin and composition. She studied violin with Jascha Heifetz's protégé Pierre Amoyal and is studying singing with renowned opera singer Yvonne Kenny. Besides her creative work, she has studied eight languages to varying degrees, lived all over the world before settling down in the UK, and has many interests including various sports, hiking, dancing, film, knife-making, politics, economics, science and psychology.
SELECTED news
2025 – Thompson’s Gallery ‘Interiors’ exhibition, Aldeburgh
2025 – Base Istanbul, Ritz-Carlton Residencies, Istanbul
2025 – National Portrait Gallery Herbert Freehills Award exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, London
2025 – Contemporary Istanbul invitee commissioned by Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles, Istanbul
2025 – INK Festival exhibition, The Cut Arts Centre, Halesworth
2025 – In bloom exhibition, Gallery Holt, Holt
2025 – Jazz singing recital and poetry reading, Southwold Arts Centre, Southwold
2025 – Art on a Postcard for International Women’s Day, London
2024 – Jazz singing recital and poetry reading, Bungay St Mary’s Church, Bungay
2024 – Public music commission commemorating the admittance of girls into education, Woodbridge School, Woodbridge
2024 – Soprano solo for a newly commissioned piece of music for The Black Shuck Festival (with tenor solo, narrator, 100-person backing choir and band), Bungay
2024 – Talent Prize at the International Tera Varna Competition
2024 – Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) Rising Star, Royal Over-Seas League, London
2024 – Plates with Purpose - Make for Peace exhibition, Messums, Tisbury
2024 – Art on a Postcard for International Women’s Day, Bomb Factory, London
2023/4 – Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition, York Art Gallery, York
2023 – Women in Art Prize exhibition, Roundhouse, London
2023 – Society of Women Artists (SWA) Karin Walker Young Artist Award, Mall Galleries, London
2023 – Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) Rising Star, Royal Over-Seas League, London
2023 – New English Art Club preselection, Mall Galleries, London
2023 – Royal Society of Portrait Painters preselection, Mall Galleries, London
2023 – Debut poetry collection Making Sense published by Verve Poetry Press (press and festival) https://vervepoetrypress.com/product/dide-making-sense/?v=79cba1185463
2023 – ‘Unconsumed’ exhibition, The Shoe Factory, Norwich
2022 – Propel Magazine feature, edited by Jeremy Noel-Tod, poem ‘Dead fox’
2022 – Anthony Fawcett’s choice at the ‘Vogue’ exhibition, Boomer Gallery, Tower Bridge, London
2022 – ‘Celebrating 70’ exhibition for the Queen’s Jubilee, Woodbridge
2022 – ‘Wild Relative’ art, music and poetry exhibition, Ballroom Arts Centre, Aldeburgh
2022 – Debut poetry pamphlet Growing published by Broken Sleep Books https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/dide-growing
2022 – ‘The Artist’s Cloth’ art and music exhibition, Artspace, Woodbridge
2021 – Tentacular Magazine feature, poems ‘Playing Sims’ and ‘=’
2021 – Popshot Quarterly Magazine feature, poem ‘Dirty washing’
2021 – ‘How do clothes define us?’ art and music exhibition, The Bank Arts Centre, Eye
2021 – ‘The Canvas Project’ exhibition, Tebbs Gallery, London
2021 – ‘Elemental’ art, music and poetry environmental exhibition, Aldeburgh Gallery, Aldeburgh
2021 – The Rialto feature, edited by Degna Stone, poem ‘Patellofemale Syndrome’
2021 – The Lettering Arts Trust and Suffolk Poetry Society’s ‘On a knife edge’ feature, in exhibition and book
2021 – Composition performance art commission for ‘Up Close and Musical’ festival Shiry Rashkovsky (in process)
2021 – Collaboration with English National Opera assistant director Chris Hopkins’s musical show ‘Impressions’
2020 – Ipswich Arts poetry film feature on YouTube http://www.ipswich-arts.org.uk
2020 – Waveney & Blythe Arts commissioned poetry film on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=MKvpkA-ahjg&app=desktop
2020 – Raveningham Sculpture Trail exhibition, Raveningham
2020 – Highly Commended Curator’s Award, Waveney & Blyth Arts ‘Sculpture in the Valley 2020’, Potton Hall (moved to 2021 due to COVID-19)
2020 – Alde Valley Spring Festival, co-composed and performed music with Perhaps Contraption band clarinetist Charly Jolly for painter Emma Green in response to and with recorded birdsong, exhibited with Emma Green’s painting. Movement 1 by Dide, movement 2 by Charly, both movements improvised and performed by both https://www.aldevalleyspringfestival.co.uk/cherry-ingram-blossom-residency/
2020 – Course collaborator and tutor at AYM Beethoven Pastoral Project at Aldeburgh Music, Snape Maltings, exploring interdisciplinary artistic approaches to climate change
