“I am really looking forward to experimenting with materials and benefiting from the university’s expertise to realise my ideas for the work,” Watkiss added.
The artist is particularly interested in healing traditions and her compositions of women use her own likeness as a way of enacting what she calls “memory stories”, Walsall Council said.
Watkiss will benefit from the university’s departments, which include ceramics, clay, fashion, 3D printing and photography.
Dr Sam Vale, the university’s curriculum lead for creative practice, said it was “an exceptional opportunity” for staff and students to collaborate closely with the Walsall gallery and with “such an innovative and exciting artist as Charmaine”.
Vale added by being involved from early development through to production and exhibition, students would gain “invaluable insight” into contemporary approaches to making work, helping prepare them for future careers.