Loire Valley Spring Residency 2026 - Applications Now Open

General Assembly is delighted to offer emerging artists a fully funded residency at Le Moulin de Marnay in Azay-le-Rideau, nestled in the heart of France’s picturesque Loire Valley, as part of our ongoing  Residency Programme.

 

Artists are invited to step away from the noise and pace of daily life and immerse themselves in the tranquillity of the French countryside. Artists are invited to slow down, breathe deeply, and reconnect with  creative flow. Surrounded by wild meadows, ancient trees and open skies, artists are encouraged to tune into nature’s rhythm, to embrace the stillness, the spaciousness, and perhaps even discover new depths in their practice.

 

From Leonardo da Vinci to Rodin, Calder, Ernst and Tanning, the Loire Valley has long drawn artists seeking inspiration. General Assembly is proud to continue that legacy by supporting contemporary voices through this unique opportunity. The residency will culminate in a group exhibition in the Loire Valley, celebrating the work created during the summer.

 

Applications are now open for our Spring 2026 residency. Application close on 15 October, 2026. 

 

https://go.generalassemblylondon.com/residency/home 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Loire Valley Residency Summer 2025

    Kathryn Armitage, Kathryn on participating in the residency
    Enquire about Kathryn's available work here

    Kathryn Armitage

    Kathryn on participating in the residency

    My studio in London is based in Bank, right in the heart of the city, which couldn’t be any further from the residency’s incredible setting in the Loire Valley. For me, the residency is a time to disconnect from the noise and hectic pace of city life and refocus on my practice - using the newfound physical and mental space to find deeper clarity and new inspiration. 

     

    Whilst most of my paintings use Dutch Golden Age paintings as compositional references, I’m excited to make a new series of works inspired by my time here, looking instead to 17th century French painters such as Nicolas Lancret and Jean-François de Troy to inform the arrangement of my figures and the environments they’re situated in. It’ll be a new challenge for me and hopefully a great opportunity to develop my practice further. 

     

    Aside from my time in the studio, I’m looking forward to using this opportunity to explore the area and learn more about the deep history of the Loire Valley, whilst also getting to know the other residents - learning more about their own experiences and ways of making work.

     

    Read Kathryn Armitage's Full Residency Interview 

  • Laura Grinberga, Laura on participating in the residency
    Enquire about Laura's available work here

    Laura Grinberga

    Laura on participating in the residency

    This residency offers me a unique possibility to experiment directly with the elements of nature. My working spot is in the garden, surrounded by trees, with access to the river—bringing together water, earth, and air. I am engaging with these forces as active collaborators, allowing them to shape my process and guide me toward new discoveries. Clay, soil, wind, and water become both materials and metaphors, offering different possibilities for experimentation.

     

    I am particularly drawn to the nearby forest and the fern, a symbol of fertility and renewal. The spiral, another central symbol in my work, becomes a way of exploring cycles—of life, death, and rebirth. Through the veil, which I use as a vessel for capturing invisible forces, I create performative gestures: suspending it from above so it moves with the air, or laying it on the ground in spiral form. By positioning myself at the center of this spiral, curled into a fetal pose, I embody the return to origin and the continuous renewal of life.

     

    This opportunity excites me deeply as it allows me to expand my practice beyond painting into performance, photography, and video—working directly with the living environment and exploring how nature itself becomes an integral part of the creative act.

     

    Read Laura Grinberga's Full Residency Interview 

  • Hélène Pavlopoulou, Hélène on participating in the residency
    Enquire about Hélène's available work here

    Hélène Pavlopoulou

    Hélène on participating in the residency

    The invitation to create in the Loire Valley as a resident artist of the General Assembly Gallery was, for me, a poetic challenge.

     

    My work is already deeply rooted in the relationship between History and Nature. The opportunity to create while immersed in the aura of the land — listening to the testimony of trees, the music of wind through leaves, the song of birds, and the ceaseless flow of the river, echoing the endlessness of time — becomes a living experience.

    An ecstatic, unexpected surprise, each time I paint while feeling united with the surrounding World. This undertaking calls me — to the present, to a reflection on the past, and toward a vision for the future.

     

    Deeply influenced by the ancient myth of joyful Arcadia — a myth that has inspired countless artists, poets, philosophers, and thinkers from antiquity to the present — I seek to recall and project this Idea into a future that seems increasingly uncertain for modern humanity.

     

    The urgent need to reconnect with Nature, to enter into a poetic and ontological relationship with it, is, I believe, the Gateway to a New Renaissance. The communal life with fellow artists also becomes an exercise in noble emulation, mutual inspiration, and inner transformation. The hospitality of the mythical house of the General Assembly Residency feels like a return to the innocent utopias of childhood.

     

    I hope the works born from this experience will become a starting point for connection with a new audience — one that is both art-loving and ecologically conscious — in France and the United Kingdom.

     

  • Benito Ekmekdjian, Benito on participating in the residency
    Enquire about Benito's available work here

    Benito Ekmekdjian

    Benito on participating in the residency

    The residency is behaving as a sacred ground for my practice, its abundance in silence, the countryside cadence as well as the community that forms the Loire has intruded on my fast paced, neurotic state and tuned it to serene tones. The possibilities are endless, from long days of work with a brush in hand, sweating in the attic, to whole afternoons packed with conversations and laughter. 

    Being surrounded by such great artists is something I’m very grateful for, their passion is contagious. Being the youngest, I’m constantly taught different lessons and I’m learning about different perspectives, practices, ways to approach the discipline and views of what I love the most, Painting. 

    Overall, Melanie and the General Assembly team have created a safe space for artists to work, learn and network with ease, without an unnerving pressure and surrounded by a beautiful landscape and an atmosphere of joy. 

     

    Read Benito Ekmekdjian's Full Residency Interview 

  • Polly Bennett, Polly on participating in the residency
    Polly Bennett
    Enquire about Polly's available work here

    Polly Bennett

    Polly on participating in the residency

    My intention on the residency is to fully lose myself in the surroundings I inhabit; the Loire as a whole but also Melanie’s house and garden, the caves, the history, the river, to intuitively gather materials that will tell the Loire’s story. 

     

    Combining my pre-existing knowledge of pigment making with local tales and generational wisdom, I aim to create site-sensitive entities that guide one through the organic colours and processes I use to record my experience within the Loire. Earth, flora, and alchemy will unravel to produce a manuscript and pigment collection of my findings, and hopefully something of a General Assembly colour legacy.

     

    I am grateful to be in a space where my practice is greatly supported and engaged with and allowed to expand to its full potential. Thank you Melanie.

     

    Read Polly Bennett's Full Residency Interview 

     

  • Harold Reed, Harold on participating in the residency
    Harold Reed
    Enquire about Harold's available work here

    Harold Reed

    Harold on participating in the residency

    Being in the Loire Valley has been wonderful. The quiet of the hamlet, combined with the mix of architecture and natural beauty all within such short distances, is really special. I feel very lucky to be spending my first-ever artist residency here with General Assembly and with such a lovely group of artists. 

     

    I arrived with oil paints, linen, a sketchbook, and an open mind. Our first day visit to Église Saint Martin at the top of town was immediately inspiring, we saw Roman frescoes of Adam and Eve and some other devilish looking figures, really beautiful paintings. Interestingly Adam and Eve weren’t portrayed as their usual rennaisance godlike figures, but instead looked famished, gaunt—almost desperate. It made me wonder how they might appear today, giving me an idea to depict the symbols of human trouble differently in a painting. 

     

    Read Harold Reed's Full Residency Interview 

  • Loire Valley Residency Summer 2024

    Will Maddrell, Will on participating in the residency
    Learn more about Will's Loire Valley show

    Will Maddrell

    Will on participating in the residency

    "At the residency, I’m very excited to be working full-time on new works and not worrying about going to the many jobs I have back in London. I can literally wake up, eat a pain au chocolat, make a coffee, get straight to work in the studio upstairs, and work until very late. Without distractions, my output is very prolific. Annual leave never felt so good. 

     

    I’m considering the legacy of the artists who have, over the centuries, spent time in this region. It is here where architect-engineer-artist Leonardo da Vinci spent his final years by invitation of Francis I; where the writer Balzac, now remembered as a foundational figure in the development of the realist novel for his complexity of character and acute observation of society, was born and spent time; and where surrealist Max Ernst and sculptor Rodin respectively took up residence in search of a tranquil environment conducive to creativity. It is not only a shared history in this region which links these artists together, but also, as their lives’ works demonstrate, an interest in the mechanics of reality. 

     

    The work I’m making here explores what it might look like if this conceptual lineage meets a contemporary self-awareness about the role of the artist in fabricating a realism of today, and that of total rest, relaxation and pleasure in the countryside in generating productive creative labour and organically getting closer to reality."

     
  • Mia Graham, Mia on participating in the residency
    Learn more about Mia's solo show at General Assembly

    Mia Graham

    Mia on participating in the residency

    "Having this immersive period to create has been so invaluable for my practice. In London, the pace of life and necessity to graft can make it difficult to retain a connection and openness to the sources which drive and influence my work, which are so often drawn from time spent in natural spaces, reading, introspection and viewing art made by others. Whilst I’ve been here, I’ve been able to completely surrender to a direction of painting which has taken on a life of its own. The simplicity of my routine is reflected in my approach to painting as I become increasingly connected to intuition.

     

    There is a growing element of physicality within my practice, which has flourished during my time here, where my own corporeal presence, and that of the nature which I am surrounded by, leaves traces on the surface of the canvas; I have been using my hands to make marks and working outside. I welcome the soiling of the fabric and reject sterility as the works develop a materiality of disintegration. In their fragile state they edge closer to becoming remains in themselves."

     

    Read Mia Graham's Full Residency Interview