Chester Visual Arts aims to make its work a permanent part of Chester and to enhance the city and the region as a better place to live, work and visit. Its ultimate aim is to secure a permanent home within the city, as a creative visual arts centre and public art gallery of international standing.

To view a Board member biography, please select from the list below.

Ian Short is co-owner of Chester based AielloShort, art and urban regeneration advisors and investors, with national and international reach. Its focus is on attracting inward investment for development and arts projects, and combining commercial property, historic preservation and legal experience in the retail, leisure, cultural and financial sectors.

Ian has a law degree from Liverpool University and is a retired lawyer, formerly as Legal Director & Company Secretary of Morris & David Jones, a major plc in the wholesale and retail food distribution business, Managing Partner of Bermans and Business Development Director of DWF, national law firms based in Liverpool. Ian has long experience in property, corporate and commercial law, with particular recent emphasis on public and private sector partnerships, urban regeneration and inward investment.

He also has extensive experience in the creative industries sector, particularly relating to the management of arts facilities and the role of culture as a driver of regeneration and community education. He is a member and past sponsor of Tate Liverpool (“Testing the Water”, 1997/98, the first Tate exhibition anywhere to be curated by young people from 14 to 24 years old) and was a long serving Director of Visionfest, a precursor of the Liverpool Biennial, and the Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, which there included the planning and implementation of its rebuilding and regeneration programme a few years ago. Ian is also a member of Art Fund, Cheshire.

He is a former Director of Liverpool Habitat for Humanity and Housing People Building Communities (HPBC), a unique social housing trust, currently building 32 houses in Toxteth, Liverpool, and is Vice-President and past Chairman of the Brunswick Youth Club, Bootle and a former Director of the Merseyside Youth Association.

Ian, a contemporary art collector, has lived in Chester for the past 16 years with Cynthia, his wife and business partner, who, for the past 8 years, have been exploring ways to improve the visual arts experience in the City, culminating in their founding Chester Visual Arts.

Hilary Banner is a retired solicitor having practised in partnership in Liverpool dealing with commercial work as well as a large number of newly emerging charitable cultural and arts organisations. She worked to establish the E.Chambré Hardman Trust Museum in Liverpool following the death of the photographer, as well as managing projects for the restoration of historic buildings through a Building Preservation Trust. Subsequently attaining a Masters degree in Environmental Law, she worked alongside industry in areas of environmental legal compliance and business systems.

Much of her work has involved project establishment and management with funding applications and, through continuing charitable work, event organisation and fund raising.

Hilary formerly chaired the Cheshire Committee of the Art Fund; the arts charity which provides a wealth of grants to the nation’s museums and galleries for the acquisition of works, the establishment of new collections and for curatorial development. She is also a Director of a London based Property Management Company.

An enthusiastic supporter of the arts, Hilary is patron to a number of NW arts organisations. She visits as many provincial galleries and museums as time allows. Spending part of her time in London provides the opportunity to be in touch with not only the major galleries but also less well-known contemporary arts institutions. Now living in Chester, she is committed to the establishment of a contemporary art gallery of national importance.