Part Three of Split opens this Friday, 20th June, 6-10pm, at Candid Arts Trust.
69 Turps + Mass artists will be exhibiting on the final stop of this touring show, which began in Wrexham and has travelled to London via Wigan where the show was well received.
Come along to view a curated exhibition of exciting contemporary artworks, including my painting For You and For Me (2024)
The desperate and horrific situation in Gaza is impacting on my work. How could it not? Day and night, people are being killed and injured by Israeli airstrikes. No civilians should be harmed. The people of Gaza are trapped and without access to food, water, electricity, fuel, and medicine.
There needs to be a ceasefire.
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-oxfam/gaza-israel-crisis-sign-petition-call-for-ceasefire-now/ has launched a petition calling for one. Please sign it if you haven’t already.
I’m delighted to be part of @undertheirskin.exhibition Show 1, launching on 2nd September at One Paved Court Gallery in Richmond, London.
Address: 1 Paved Court, Richmond, TW9 1LZ
Opening Times: Wednesday – Sunday 12.00 – 5.00pm
Open until 7pm on Thursdays (Gallery closed Mon + Tues)
About the exhibition:
What lies beneath the skin of an artwork? What makes an artwork get under OUR skin?
This show invites you to consider what goes on beneath. The life of the work in this exhibition lies as much in the viewers’ perception of them as it does in the minds of the artists who created them. As a collective we ask our audience to observe, reflect and allow the works under their skin.
“The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.“
Philip Guston
Participating Artists:
Celebrating migration, the power of friendship, mothering and creativity, the project I have been leading, Mother Trees Connect The Forest, has provided a nurturing opportunity for two community groups, made up of refugee and migrant women and children living in Dover and Thanet to connect, have fun, and explore free expression through painting.
The title, Mother Trees Connect The Forest, is inspired by the work of ecologist Suzanne Simard who discovered how in nature different species of trees rely on each other and on networks of fungi, for nutrients and to communicate. This collaborative relationship helps forests thrive and regenerate, and is essential for creating a healthy ecosystem. Migration is central to human existence, and like humans trees also migrate. We all have a migration story to tell; migration shapes us, enriches our lives, and makes us who we are – as individuals, communities and nations.
The women and children participating in this project support each other through their networks of family and friendship. These networks of love and care not only benefit them in their individual lives as grandmothers, mothers, aunties, daughters and sons, siblings and friends but also their communities. We can add to this network the women who have worked together to deliver this project: Myself, Rosa, Elinor, Jan, Iveta, Pip and Sara– we are all the mother trees connecting the forest.
In just five painting workshops the creativity of the participant artists has blossomed. The subjects of their paintings are unique and varied, and give powerful insights into their makers’ lives. For example, a painting of an Afghan woman on her wedding day, who has had her wedding make-up done at a beauty salon, is made even more poignant with the news at the beginning of July that the Taliban has ordered the closure of beauty salons in Afghanistan. This follows the closure of girls’ secondary schools, the barring of women from universities, baths, gyms and parks and the Taliban’s decree women should dress in a way that only reveals their eyes. Female-run beauty salons in Afghanistan have provided a place for women to meet safely outside of the home and socialize.
Women’s lives matter. Women’s stories matter. All over the world, including in the UK, we can find examples of women’s freedoms being restricted. It is therefore more important than ever we uphold women’s rights and freedoms in the UK, and provide safe places for women from all backgrounds to meet each other, spend time together and assert our right to freedom of expression.
By Joy C Martindale (July 2023)
The project was supported by grant funding from Arts Council England and co-commissioned by Counterpoints Arts.
Project partners: Cliftonville Cultural Space, Beyond The Page ltd, Samphire, Rosamaria Kostic Cisneros.
Photos from Cliftonville Cultural Space and Dover Big Local copyright Joy C. Martindale
This is the companion piece to the work I showed in Material Presence Part 1 at Fitzrovia Gallery last week.
It is part of a larger body of work called Birds Are The Opposite of Time – a project I developed whilst listening to Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (Quartet for The End of Time) by Olivier Messiaen. The work was composed in a prisoner of war camp in 1940 and was inspired by the Apocalypse as it is described in the Book of Revelation. The title, Birds are the Opposite of Time, is taken from Messiaen’s notes on part III of the work – Abyss of the Birds: ‘The Abyss, which is Time, with its sadness and weariness. The birds are the opposite of Time: they represent our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows and for jubilant song.’ Messiaen was a passionate ornithologist and in the same way he saw music and birds as being the opposite of time as it marks out the finiteness of life, I see artmaking as being the opposite. Painting is an expression of my inner life, which feels infinite in its formless constancy to my sense of being.
I am seeking to create a feeling of vitality and performance when I make a painting and I am driven by a sense of compulsion and necessity. Aspiring to develop new language I work in an exploratory way, learning as much from failures and mistakes as discoveries.
The Finissage of Material Presence Part 2 is today, 26th November, 12-5pm at Fitzrovia Gallery and the last day of the exhibition is tomorrow (10am-3pm)
The exhibition features paintings and sculpture by talented artists from the Turps Correspondence Course of 2021-2022
Material Presence
Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St,
London
W1T 5EN
Birds Are The Opposite of Time (2022) by Joy C Martindale, Acrylic on paper
DM me for sales and exhibition enquiries
I’m really excited to be exhibiting in Material Presence, which opens today at Fitzrovia Gallery!
The exhibition features contemporary paintings and sculpture by talented artists from the Turps Correspondence Course of 2021-2022.
Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St, London W1T 5EN
Part 1: 15th-20th November
Finissage 19th November 12-5pm
Part 2: 22nd-27th November
Finissage 26th November 12-5pm
For more exhibition information: www.instagram.com/materialpresence
Buy this artwork and help raise money for humanitarian relief in Ukraine!
Go Where The Love Is (2021) by Joy C Martindale
🇺🇦Go Where The Love Is is my entry to Help Ukraine: Without Reserve. Proceeds go to Disasters Emergency Committee.
Hurry, bidding closes in less than 24 hrs.
Bid at https://theauctioncollective.com/auctions/help-ukraine-without-reserve/ and scroll down to Go Where The Love Is (2021) by Joy C Martindale
Thank you and Good Luck!
The title of this work is a quote from the writer Salena Godden whose mother always told her to go where the love is. By this she meant surround yourself with positivity and spend time with people who believe in you and what you are trying to do.
When I heard these words I took them into my heart – I thought these words can help me as I try to find my way as an artist and a painter.
I think the advice is particularly good because it is also saying in life there will be many moments when you might not be understood or valued and when this happens don’t waste time, move on and seek others who will help you to be your best self.
@disastersemergencycommittee
@rabotarussianart
@theauctioncollective
My exhibition, Nice To Meet You – Som Rado Hoij Tumen Spindzardom is on show now at Turner Contemporary in Margate.
Nice To Meet You – Som Rado Hoij Tumen Spindzardom
Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent
16 March – 24 April 2022
Open Wednesday-Sunday 10am-5pm and Tuesdays from 5th April
This project has been made possible by National Lottery supported Arts Council England grant funding and a grant from Counterpoints Arts.
Coming very soon: I will be showing new work in a group show at Nunnery Gallery 🦜
In Response
31/08/2021 – 05/09/2021
Nunnery Gallery
181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ
Private View: Thursday 2nd September 6-9pm
🦜In Response is the first group show of new paintings by 29 London artists from the 2020/21 Turps Correspondence Course.🦜
See gallery website for exhibition opening times http://www.bowarts.org
#contemporaryart#contemporarypainting#contemporarybritishpainting
#newwork#londonartshow#paintingshow#arte#galerie#gallery#artcollector#artintheUK#londonart#freeentrylondon#firstthursday#newexhibition#paintingtoday#Nunnery
I have been listening to Der Abschied, the closing part of The Song of The Earth by Gustav Mahler. The songs in Song of The Earth, a composition for two voices and an orchestra, are based on several poems written by poets of the Tang dynasty.
This particular version was conducted in 1952 by his friend Bruno Walter. It is a moving piece made all the more powerful once you learn that Mahler didn’t live to hear the work performed.
Kathleen Ferrier’s contralto voice is incredible and sadly she was gravely ill with cancer when she performed it for this recording. She died the following year aged just 41.
Tragic, beautiful and addictive listening!
This piece continues my project responding to recordings of The Song of the Earth. For this work I listened to a version conducted by Long Yu which pairs Mahler’s symphonic song-cycle with contemporary compositions by Xiaogang Ye that draw on the texts in the original Mandarin.
The title ‘Everywhere the Lovely Earth Blossoms Forth’ is a line from Mahler’s version of The Song of the Earth. The songs talk of the beauty of the earth but the words today take on a new troubling poignancy as our awareness grows of the destruction the human race has unleashed on the natural world.
Man-made climate change threatens us all with developing countries and the poor currently facing the greatest threat. How can we work together to create a fairer and more sustainable future? Art can provide new and unexpected routes into reflective dialogue that brings the heart and soul into engagement with tackling climate change issues.
“There’s a guy I worked with in Canada who once told me important issues first go into your head and that’s interesting and fascinating. Then they go into your heart and that’s exciting, then into your gut, which is really worrying, and then into your soul.
“When it goes into your soul, you can’t get it out, no matter how much you try, and you have to do something about it.
“I think that’s what happened to me with climate change. First of all, I found it fascinating, then it was all very exciting to try and understand and see where it was happening, then it was really troubling. Now it’s in my soul and that’s what gets me out of bed every day.”
Dr Gabrielle Walker
Joy martindale 