Theadora Ballantyne-Way born 1988 is an editioner at Thumbprint Editions, London, and is the founder and director of Atelier21, a contemporary art and print studio in Bristol, where she specialises in traditional photographic printmaking processes including polymer photogravure, screenprint and cyanotype. Since studying at Central St Martins, University of Reading and University of West of England, her work has been widely exhibited including at the International Original Print Exhibition and the Royal Academy.
Theadora takes every day harmless objects and fuses them into romanticised suburban landscapes in the great tradition of surrealist art. In much of her practice, mundane utensils become monumental industrial components; a transformation that elevates them into objects of aesthetic consideration and bizarre emblems of middle-class terror. Her enlargement of these objects is as much a critique of consumer habits as they are a celebration of the surreal – a playful conceit on the rich history of the English pastoral. Probing at our sense of perception, her use of the textures and antiquated processes of traditional printmaking produces a false sense of legitimacy; one that is at odds with most contemporary image production.