Becky Beasley

For the 30th anniversary of Awards for Artists, we interviewed 12 previous recipients in conversation with Lilli Geissendorfer. 
Becky Beasley. Photo credit: Fizzel Castro

I know I am changing lives, and saving lives.”

Becky Beasley received one of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Awards for Artists in 2018, at a point where I’d been on my knees for several years after having had my son; with what I now know is undiagnosed autism and early perimenopause. I was broken beyond belief.”

The Award gave me the opportunity to take some time, to get some private healthcare, and take up ceramics – which was very healing. In some ways since the Award my career has been quite slow, but I’m ready now. I am more motivated than ever by the injustice and stigma facing those with autism to make a difference with my work and activism.”

Quite slow” is relative, and it is deeply moving to hear how she has navigated the last five years of self-discovery and development, finding new materials to work with, new spaces to work in and new colleagues and peers to connect with. She was a finalist last year for the prestigious Freelands Award, and has her first major new commission in many years at QUAD in Derby in 2026.

What’s fairly unique about me is that I spent my whole career until recently without a diagnosis; now people say your work is so clearly autistic’ but I got to mid-career without any support. So I have experience of that and this new filter to reflect on my experience of the art world.” Her diagnosis has helped her make sense of her creative process. Now she’s supporting others, campaigning for positive change and setting up a sanctuary for autistic female artists and teenagers in a new space at the bottom of her garden. The compound will include a residency space as well as a research centre dedicated to natural glazes, and a research library

Aerial Flowers (I), 11 archival digital prints with risograph prints tipped in, eyelets. Dimensions: 375cm width x 157cm height, 2021. Aerial Flowers (II), Vintage Anne Demeulemeester metallic coat, pendulum mechanism, vintage wooden screen, maple seeds, book (Two Plants in Dip), 2021. Tip of the Iceberg, Focal Point, 2021.

Impact of the award

But let’s rewind to the beginning. The first thing she did when the Award hit her bank account was take some time, and access private specialist healthcare she’d been struggling to get on the NHS. Year two saw her get a potting shed and kiln in her garden discovering a love of plant-based colours and begin experimenting with glazes. Year three, Covid hit and Everything went silent, and I had the opportunity to be alone in my shed. My partner was furloughed and stayed home with our son. In that time, in many ways, I had never felt so well.” 

It was at this time that she also became aware of masked female autism, which started a four-year journey redesigning her whole life. Today, she’s on HRT, the potting shed is on the way to her son’s primary school to become part of their Forest School activities, and she’s upgraded: buying the warehouse at the bottom of her garden. 

Becky Beasley. Photo credit: Fizzel Castro

The grand plan is for the whole compound – house, garden, warehouse – to become a sanctuary and offer solo creative retreats for women with autism, particularly autistic teenage girls. That’s my niche, because I’ve had so many parents in the arts whose children are now in their early teens and they are in despair.”

She’s also contributing to the first international research into perimenopause and autism, an under-researched area. As she explains, the facts are stark: We are the most underemployed demographic. Suicide rates for women peak in their early 50s – it’s a real danger zone.” Research suggests that neurodiversity is overrepresented among artists, from dyslexia through to autism. Which makes sense: thinking differently is highly valued in the creative world. 

But as Beasley’s experience attests, people with autism can still face stigma, misunderstanding and practical barriers across the art world.

Promising Mid-Career Woman
H. S. P. (or Promising Mid-Career Woman). 27/11/2021 – 05/0/2022. Plan B, Berlin.

Beasley has been teaching at Goldsmiths, University of the Arts London for 10 years, explaining how teaching feeds her practice through the intergenerational exchange with students. She’s been out’ as autistic for the past three years, and now has testimonials on the seismic culture shift her awareness-raising has generated within the Fine Art department, something she hopes can inspire other universities to change too. She credits her line manager Claire Makhlouf Carter with helping her push through glass ceilings: So much depends on allyship; if people don’t understand autism, then they don’t have a clue. They say things like oh, we’re all on the spectrum’, when the reality is, the spectrum is not linear.”

What’s next?

A big project for her now is working on addressing bullying in the visual arts, having been the victim of bullying herself, often at very high levels. It’s the nature of our species to be bullied – because of the challenges of masking, we are seen as different – bullying is rife.” 

She’s also working with others to set up the International Professional Weird Sister Network’, initially on Instagram. Artist Heather Peak is my great weird sister – currently CEO of DASH. Artist Sonia Boue is another – I’m currently mentoring her for her first institutional show as I have 20 years experience of dealing with institutions who don’t have the time, space or expertise to know how to best support you.” 

Her vision for the compound is to complete the building over the next few years and then set up a research centre for natural glazing, with a focus on botanicals connected to her garden. In many ways the use of plants and botanicals in glazing is akin to their use in photography. For example, I propagate ferns, one of my favourite things, and they become ash for specific glazes.” 

The upstairs floor of the studio building will have a small bedroom, wet room and kitchen, so it can host disabled and neurodivergent creatives on solitary retreats. And her extensive library, which will be part of the offer. We’re going to start with a friend in Eastbourne who is fairly housebound, coming for a week a month next year.”

Ultimately, she’s hoping to make a book to reflect on her unique perspective of understanding her experience as an artist first as a fierce dedication – I think of it a little like Greta (Thunberg) and climate change” – and latterly as a core expression of her autism. 

There are quite a few of us out there – female, autistic, menopausal – but not many prioritising raising awareness and talking about it. And that’s fine; I’m choosing to put this part of my identity front and centre of my practice at this point in my career. For some who have multiple disabilities, people of colour, there’s a whole matrix of things and autism is just one lens.”

She tells earlier career artists that they don’t have to be out’ if they aren’t ready: We say no, let us be the frontline’ for now.”

What’s good is that all the movements of the last 15 years for women, the trans movement, the disability movement – now we are finally coming together in the neurodivergent movement.”

Biography

Becky Beasley. Photo credit: Fizzel Castro

Becky Beasley (b. 1975, UK) is a recipient of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Awards for Artists (2018), Freelands Award Finalist (2023), and a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award (2020). She has participated in numerous international exhibitions, among them 80WSE Gallery (NYU), New York; Towner Gallery, Eastbourne; South London Gallery, London; Leeds City Gallery, Leeds; Spike Island, Bristol; Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London; Tate Britain, London; Stanley Picker Gallery, London; Whitworth, Manchester; Bluecoat, Liverpool; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunstverein Freiburg; Kunstverein Munich; Kunsthalle Bern. 

She is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London and is represented internationally by Galeria Plan B, Berlin and Francesca Minini Gallery, Milan. She received a late autism diagnosis in 2021 and is a passionate role model and advocate for autism understanding.

Related content