Anouk Mercier studied at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris and the University of the West of England in Bristol, where she is now Associate Lecturer at the Drawing Centre.

Anouk became the first CW+ Drawn in Residence artist on the programme in 2018. Whilst in the hospital she came across a group photograph of 50 nurses, taken in 1919, and was struck by the fact that none of their names had been recorded. She also noticed that throughout the archives and the hospital’s art collection there are numerous paintings, drawings and references to significant male figures in and around the hospital, but few to none of women. To address this lack of representation, Anouk drew 50 individual portraits of each of the women in the photograph.