Meet The Artists

Northlight is artist-led.

At the heart of Northlight are practising artists Amanda Burton and Boris Cruse, who lead the organisation, shape its creative programme and work from their studios at the art centre in Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

Our own experience as artists informs the way Northlight works — creating opportunities for people to make, experiment, learn from artists and feel part of a creative community.

We also work with a growing network of artists, makers, tutors and creative practitioners who bring their own skills, ideas and practices to the Northlight programme.

Boris Cruse

Artist · Artistic Director

Boris Cruse is a Leeds-based figurative artist and teacher, working primarily in charcoal and graphite. His drawings explore the human figure through movement, anatomy and the physical structures that lie beneath the surface.

“I draw what I know more than what I see.”

Making and teaching

Drawing and teaching are closely connected in Boris’s practice. His knowledge of anatomy, weight and movement informs both his own work and the way he works alongside others.

He is less interested in producing a conventionally ‘correct’ drawing than in the process of looking, experimenting and developing an individual visual language.

From Inkwell to Northlight

Boris founded Inkwell and later co-founded Northlight from a belief that making art can genuinely change people’s lives.

That belief continues to shape Northlight today. His roles as artist, teacher and community arts practitioner grow from the same conviction: that serious artistic practice can be welcoming, accessible and rooted in people’s real lives without losing its ambition.

Artistic influences

Boris’s work is particularly informed by Mannerist and Baroque artists. He is drawn to the restless, elongated figures of Pontormo, the physical force and movement of Rubens, and the directness and humanity of Rembrandt.

Their use of the figure to carry weight, tension and emotion continues to inform both his drawing and teaching

What comes next?

Boris is deepening his figurative practice, exhibiting more of his own work and continuing to explore the connection between teaching and making.

The search remains the same: to find marks capable of carrying movement, structure and feeling — and to make visible something that words alone cannot quite reach.

Instagram @boris.cruse

Jewellery, art & community

Amanda has a long-established jewellery practice, working predominantly with copper and brass. Her interest in surface, texture and material change moves naturally between her jewellery and painting.

Amanda’s relationship with community arts began at Inkwell Arts in Leeds, first as a volunteer and later working in arts development and helping to shape its creative programme.

Her work in community arts has given her a close understanding of the relationship between creativity, mental health and wellbeing, and of the importance of having welcoming spaces where people can make art without judgement or expectation.

That experience continues through Northlight, where she combines her own studio practice with creating opportunities for others to make, learn and develop their own creative lives.

For Amanda, being an artist and creating opportunities for other people to be creative are closely connected. Art can be ambitious, experimental and serious while also helping us connect, process experience and find our place in the world.

Amanda Burton

Artist · Co-director

Amanda Burton is a Leeds-based multidisciplinary artist working across abstract painting, jewellery and sculptural objects. Her practice is concerned with materials, transformation and the relationship between art and science.

Whether working with paint or metal, Amanda enjoys processes that allow an element of unpredictability: layering, sanding, oxidation, patination and chemical reaction, allowing the materials themselves to influence what develops.

Art, science and transformation

Amanda’s background in science continues to inform her approach to making. Her interest in alchemy has been particularly influenced by Carl Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy and its exploration of transformation as both a material and psychological process.

Her paintings often develop gradually through layers that are covered, altered and revealed, leaving traces of earlier stages within the finished surface.

Artists Website wiremoon.co.uk

Instagram @amandaburton_wiremoon

Artist-Led Programme

Northlight works with a growing community of artists, makers, tutors and creative practitioners from Leeds and beyond.

Our programme is shaped by the people who lead it — bringing their own professional practice, skills and ideas into the studio through courses, workshops, talks and creative projects.

From painting, pottery and printmaking to jewellery, life drawing and art history, our programme gives people opportunities to learn directly from practising artists and explore different ways of making.