Wilful Amateur presents a timely overview of Sian Bonnell’s art practice from 1978 to the present. Arranged non-chronologically the book brings together early and later works into new correspondence. Essays by Aliki Braine, Sian Bonnell, Duncan Wooldridge, and a transcript of the artist in conversation with Susan Bright provide further fascinating insights into the work.

Sian Bonnell is a UK based artist, living and working in Devon. Her artistic practice aims to challenge our ideas around the nature of art and its subject-matter. Working with available objects and spaces, Bonnell sees her camera as a “partner in crime – my provocateur; it dares me to do things”.  Sian’s work has been exhibited and published widely and is held in many public and corporate collections notably, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, the Ransom Center, Texas and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

Dr Susan Bright (Aus/UK) is an experienced arts leader with a specialty in curating lens based art. Over the course of her career she has developed expertise and networks worldwide realizing projects in Europe, The Americas and Australia. She has been invited to curate exhibitions at Tate Britain, The National Portrait Gallery (UK), Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Italy), Princeton University Art Museum (USA), Lismore Castle Arts (Ireland) amongst others.
She has been guest curator/ artistic director for festivals in France, Spain and Germany and published seven books on art and photography. She is a regular contributor to exhibition catalogues, journals, magazines and broadsheets including The Financial Times, The Guardian and Vogue. She has broadcast for BBC Radio 4.  She is currently working on exhibitions for 2026 at Alice Austen House Museum in New York, and the Stone Gallery at Boston University