Directors
CLIVE DOHERTY
Clive Doherty
Clive is Festive Road’s Creative & Technical Director. He is an artist, engineer, designer and maker with extraordinary vision and skill.
He is the creative force behind the design and making of Festive Road’s growing collection of giant pedal-powered structures and puppets, including our iconic creatures - Harminder, Oscar, Shanti, Archie, and Gwynhaff. He was co-creator of Festive Road’s large-scale outdoor art events: Paraffinalia in 2016 and Festival of Giants in 2017; and his reputation for ingenuity and the high quality of his work is recognised nationally and internationally.
Clive has always been keenly interested in science, engineering and art - seeing artists as engineers, and engineers as artists. He loves mechanisms and the way that they can move; and has designed many ingenious contraptions, including his growing collection of automata - some of which were commissioned for Milton Keynes Festival Fringe in 2016.
He is also building an eclectic portfolio of ‘static’ pieces, including a set of giant amanita toadstools, an outsized orrery, and a commission titled ‘Returning from a Bike Ride’ -a whimsical tryptch of three cycling animal friends (dog, fox & cat) mounted on three lampposts. The piece, made from scrap metal and discarded household items, is a celebration of cycling and recycling.
Clive has also created a Paralympic Heritage Cauldron for Stoke Mandeville, the spiritual home of the paralympic movement. The Cauldron will also be used for all future summer and winter paralympic ceremonies at Stoke Mandeville.
As well as working on his own projects, Clive enjoys skill-sharing with other artists; and is currently collaborating on a Project with Anna Berry, funded by Unlimited. The Breathing Room is a large-scale, experiential, kinetic light installation in which a tunnel lined with cones ‘breathes’, creating a strange and otherworldly immersive experience.
He believes that art is intrinsic to any idea or concept, and that beauty cannot exist without purpose.
MARTINE FROST
As our Executive Director, Martine leads on the day-to-day operations of Festive Road; managing the business, financial and administrative side of the company; with responsibility for ensuring that the Board of Advisors is consulted on significant decisions and kept apprised of events affecting or impacting on the company.
A vital part of her role is maintaining and forging links with key stakeholders and partners; ensuring that Festive Road is part of the bigger conversation in the cultural sector.
As a member of the Advisory Group for the National Association of Street Artists (NASA UK) - whose aim is to support and develop the professional practice of UK based outdoor artists - Martine is keen to take the an opportunity to share knowledge, skills, and experience.
She has more than 40 years’ experience in UK and worldwide business administration and management, within an eclectic range of sectors - including local government and global maritime.
Her work over a number of years as a freelance consultant, and company director, has included: business development; budgeting and financial planning; event/project planning and management; social media management and training; as well as liaison with a wide range of businesses, organisations, and individuals.
After a career break, Martine returned as a Disability Equality Consultant - working on accessible information and access for all. This fuelled her passion and ambition for equal access to services and employment for all.
Martine is fully committed to doing all she can to ensure the continued success and growth of Festive Road.
Resident Artistic Associates
Paul Smith
A founder member of Festive Road, Paul has over 25 years’ experience working as an artist in educational environments and the wider community with children and staff ranging from nursery to college level, as well as with youth, family and special needs groups and community bodies on projects, events and festivals.
Paul loves weaving and ‘instant art’ – incorporating a lot of this in the work he does with schools. He enjoys helping other people and ‘bringing them along’, both artistically but also in gaining confidence.
He has worked on the Creative Partnerships programme for UKCCA and Creative Junction, delivering many inspirational projects to schools across Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire. He has been a visiting artist and held artist-in-residence positions in several schools in Luton, Milton Keynes and Northampton and has worked with MK Gallery, Autism Bedfordshire, MENCAP, Luton Libraries, Mercedes Benz, Connexions MK and many other organisations.
Paul’s degree is in Printmaking, but his practice has developed over the years to incorporate a multi-disciplined approach. He works predominately 3-dimensionally; structures, sculpture, site specific, etc working in wood, willow, concrete and recycled materials, integrating painting and printmaking techniques; his experience is extensive.
As part of the 2015 Rugby World Cup celebrations Festive Road was commissioned by Milton Keynes Council to create some unique murals. Paul worked with children from a number of schools in Milton Keynes to paint four underpasses; with each specially designed by the creative team at Festive Road.
Anna Berry
Anna was born in Glasgow, and currently lives and creates in Milton Keynes. After reading Experimental Psychology & Philosophy at Worcester College, Oxford, she worked in academic publishing before turning to photography full-time. In 2012 she transitioned from a purely commercial practice to an artistic one, embracing other media.
Anna is most known for creating socially and politically conscious pieces. Her work is often concerned with the way cognition shapes reality and, hence, how reality differs from what we perceive. Despite the conceptual nature of her work, the pieces tend to be experientially visceral and emotionally charged, sometimes with uncanny resonances of the organic. She works in a variety of media, but is most known for paper interventions.
Her passions include travel and wilderness, but the greatest of them all is music - and, in her own words is "a whore to every genre."
To find out more about Anna and her work, please visit her website
Ewan Hutcheson
Ewan was born in Macclesfield, and raised in Milton Keynes. His work speaks of the worlds he made up whilst playing on his own under the orange glow of underpasses and Redways.
Ewan's work emerged from the street art boom of the early 2000`s but, as he began to be offered exhibitions, his work evolved. Never forgetting his roots of painting walls, he brought the drive and persistence that the world teaches you into gallery spaces, creating strong colourful works that demand attention.
Since completing his foundation degree at Bletchley College, he has been curating exhibitions and live painting club nights in Milton Keynes and Northampton; believing that the only way to democratise the art world, and to get people to look at art, is in a more relaxed atmosphere than the white cube gallery scenario.
Having completed his BA in Fine art at Northampton University, Ewan also attended the Royal College of Art (RCA) to study Information Experience Design. This course focused on interactive digital experiences and installations, and has brought new threads to Ewan's already wide ranging experience.
Ewan is the Chairperson and Organiser of MK Paint Jam, and creator of The Black List Drawing Club. He has taken part in numerous live painting events around the UK, and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Ewan has taken the lead on a number of projects for Festive Road - including the MK Bus Shelter Project in 2018. He worked with a number of students from MK College to design and paint a mural onto a container being used as a shower block by the Shelter. Funding for the project was provided by MK Community Foundation. He was also the lead artist on workshops run for students from the Aylesbury Vale area to assist with the design of a Heritage Paralympic Cauldron.
