The Disoeuvre: Household Mix: please RSVP flick@felicityallen.co.uk to reserve a place
2.00 pm Denise De Cordova and Jane Gifford
2.20 pm Vanessa Jackson and Moyra Derby
3.00 pm Felicity Allen and Chiara Williams
3.20 pm General discussion
4.00 Catherine Grant, Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, introduces A Time of One’s Own: histories of feminism in contemporary art (2022)
In A Time of One’s Own Catherine Grant examines how contemporary feminist artists are turning to broad histories of feminism ranging from political organizing and artworks from the 1970s to queer art and activism in the 1990s. Exploring artworks from 2002 to 2017, Grant maps a revival of feminism that takes up the creative and political implications of forging feminist communities across time and space.
Artists’ Bios
Felicity Allen is developing her concept of the Disoeuvre with others (challenging conventional art hierarchies) through painting, writing, films, Household exhibitions, and discussions and texts. Her sixth series of Dialogic Portraits, made as artist in residence with the research project People Like You: Contemporary Figures of Personalisation, is the basis for her 2021 film Figure to Ground – a Site Losing its System. A former Getty Guest Scholar, she was previously Head of Education & Interpretation at Tate Britain
Sculptor Denise de Cordova is a Henry Moore Fellow, a Stanley Picker Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, where she currently teaches. In a range of techniques and mediums her work considers the female body as a site alluding to Terra Mater, folk traditions and rituals, to create ‘place portraits’. She also makes specific ceramic sculptures under the nom de plume Amy Bird. Her work is shown internationally.
Born in Omagh, Northern Ireland, Moyra Derby is an artist working with painting and pictorial conventions. Senior Lecturer in Painting at the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Painting, Moyra has just completed a practice-led PhD at the University of Kent. An interest in the capacities of painting to capture, hold and disperse attention has involved working with mathematical systems, in particular prime numbers and the work of historic mathematician Sophie Germain who used a male pseudonym to bypass the gender restrictions she faced.
Jane Gifford is a British artist who has been making written and drawn accounts of her dreams, daily, for over three decades. From these initial sketches she creates drawings, paintings, prints and videos. Her work has been shown internationally and is held in various public and private collections, including the Government Art Collection.
Reem Khatib, who lives in Damascus, graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1992, followed by studies at the Higher Institute of Drama. A painter and photographer, she has worked as a scenographer at the National Theatre in Damascus since 2013, and is founder of the Shadow and Light project, which creates educational theatre workshops for children. She has worked on many social art projects, including with refugee children and a British Council international collaboration with Tate Britain.
Vanessa Jackson lives and works in London. Former lectureships include the Royal Academy Schools, Winchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art, she was a Yaddo resident in 1985 and again in 1991, elected to the Royal Academy in 2015 and is a member of the Edwin Austin Abbey Council. Recent exhibitions include 2021 ‘Uptown Dancing’ 13 pedestrian crossings in Piccadilly, commissioned by HOLBA and the RA and a 2017 solo show at Tintype Gallery London, ‘A Light Here’.
Jenny Matthews is a documentary photographer. Since 1982 she has been documenting social issues worldwide and has concentrated on the effect of conflict on the lives of women. During Covid she started printing images from her archive onto cotton and added embroidery. One set of images from Afghanistan is a response to women losing their freedom, their rights, their identity after the Taliban took over control in August 2021.
Chiara Williams is an artist and former curator. After curating over 80 exhibitions and working directly with over 500 artists, she now focuses on her own practice. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the 53rd & 54th Venice Biennales. She lives and works in Margate, Kent.