Cadmium is a portfolio mentorship platform for art school applications.
I’ve taught for years across different contexts - including as an Associate Lecturer at UAL, as a visiting tutor at Goldsmiths, and working one-to-one with students in more focused settings. What I valued most was the direct engagement with students and their work… and what I valued less was how removed that often became within institutions.
Cadmium grew out of that.
The focus is on developing a body of work that actually holds together - not just a collection of projects or outcomes. Alongside portfolio development, Cadmium also offers creative mentorship for artists and support with written work where needed.
We work with students applying at Foundation, BA and MA level, including to UAL, Goldsmiths and the RCA.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how painting doesn’t start in the head for me - it starts in the body.
Most of my work begins before I even realise it’s happening: a colour or texture I can’t shake, a mark that insists on existing because it just feels so good to scratch that particular form into paint.
I’m interested in images that don’t settle.
Ones that vibrate between being formed and unformed… legible and refusing legibility. I love that awkward in-between space: where things are alive, shifting, resisting the pressure to become “clear” or “finished.”
Some process glimpses from the past few years:
metal powders, corrosive solutions, oils, dust, accidental stains, deliberate refusals.
Making and unmaking them again and again.
I always come back to this idea that a painting can be a kind of gut-language - something that bypasses tidy explanations.
A space where instinct leads and logic trails behind.
More soon.
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The John Moore’s Painting Prize 2025 is now open until 1st March 2026! I’m so honoured to be among such brilliant painters. Thankyou to the jurors @gemmarollsbentley #zhangenli #zoéwhitley and @louise___giovanelli and congratulations to @ally_fallon for winning first prize and @davidncaines for winning the Lady Grantchester Prize! If you do go to see the show at @walkerartgallery you can still vote for the Visitor’s Choice Award 🫶🏻😉
Painting Forever !! Xx
@jmpaintingprize@walkerartgallery
I’m so happy to have a painting selected for the John Moore’s Painting Prize 2025! Some of my favourite painters have exhibited at John Moore’s over the years, so I’m super honoured to be one of them. Thankyou so much to the selectors! Opening is on 6th September at The Walker Art Gallery @walkerartgallery in Liverpool ✨ - I hope some of you can make the trip! @jmpaintingprize #jmp2025
Available Now: ‘You and I (detail)’ by India Nielsen
➡️ go to extrawell.xyz to purchase
✅ Time limited - available for 10 days only
✅ Large format pigments prints
✅ making it affordable to champion an artist that you love
About the artist:
India Nielsen (b. 1991) lives and works in London. She received her MA in Painting from The Royal College of Art in 2018, having previously completed her BA in Fine Art at The Slade School of Fine Art. Recent Solo exhibitions include; crayola sphinx or dogwoman, Soup Gallery, (London). Time is with me now, Well Projects, (Margate). M is for Madonna, M is for Mariah, M is for Mother at Darren Flook (London). Crybaby at Imlabor (Tokyo) and RedivideR at Platform Southwark (London). In 2023 Nielsen had her first museum exhibition at Kebbel-Villa in Bavaria, Germany.
@indianielsen@extrawell__
#extrawellmargate
On view at @soup.ldn in their upstairs viewing room until Christmas ♥️
Woman and dog (Marie Høeg and her dachshund), 2024
Copper and oil on wood panel
28cm x 35.5cm x 2cm
One of two little works I have on display in the viewing room at @soup.ldn until Christmas 🐌✨
Long distance traveller / Octavia Butler (Make People FEEL! FEEL! FEEL!), 2024
Copper and oil on wood panel
28cm x 35.5cm x 2cm
“Crayola Sphinx or Dogwoman” is my first publication, produced by @foolscap.editions to accompany my show at @soup.ldn ❣️ Inside there is a wonderful text by talented writer and artist Tobi Ajayi @oluwatobilobaajayi_ and a fold out poster with drawings and sketches I made as part of the process of creating this new body of work. The show ends 26th October so grab one while you can ♥️ Special shoutout to Octavia Butler whose powerful way of thinking and visualising is a very personal influence and inspiration for me
You and I (Altarpiece in five parts), 2024
Copper, oil and wood on canvas
186.5cm x 241cm x 7.5cm
Showing at @soup.ldn until 26th Oct
Photography by Peter Otto
