I’m delighted to be showing my painting Dear Moon (2024) in Response.
“An artwork is not complete until it is received by others. Art lives in our response. The spectator, the listener, is as important as the doer.”
Helen Martineau, Prodigal Daughters.
Response is the first exhibition of Split Collective’s 2026 season. Opening in Guernsey on 29th May, it will then travel to London mid-August.
A response is a reply, an answer, a reaction. It implies correspondence, connection, conversation. The nature of a response, be it an affirmation, a question, a defence, rebuttal, or refusal, always carries a seed, a possibility of growth and expansion. A response can be the building block of a meaningful relationship, an opportunity for enlightenment or just the chance to engage in playful banter.
To respond is inherent in the Turps and MASS Correspondence Courses, which link artists and mentors across a wide geographical area and from which the Split Collective emerged in 2025. In a deeper way, to respond is woven into every artist’s practice. Artworks are formed by multiple responses – to materials, to experiences, to peers, to the audience and to the wider community.
Where previous Split Collective shows focused on the response between artist and mentor, now released from the structure of the course, the work presented in Responseexpands to explore that space in which myriad connections create the possibilities for better worlds. We invite you to join the conversation.
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)
For You and For Me, (2024) Acrylic and pen on newspaper page on stretched canvas, 50x40x2cm
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.
Image shows work in progress. The photo is by Samar Abu Elouf and the article is by Fadi Abu Shammalah. Both are taken from the New York Times (International Edition) published on October 14th-15th 2023.
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.“
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
Photo shows a child holding up a picture he made at the 2nd storytelling movement workshop led by dancer and artist Rosa Cisneros
Photo shows a project participant with her artwork at a United Mothers group painting workshop hosted by Cliftonville Cultural Space
Photo shows a project participant with her artwork at a United Mothers group painting workshop hosted by Cliftonville Cultural Space
Photo shows a project participant with her artwork at a United Mothers group painting workshop hosted by Cliftonville Cultural Space
Photo shows Milan with his picture ‘Ruby’.
Photo shows Frantisek holding up a painting he is working on at a Samphire group painting workshop at Dover Big Local.
Photo shows Kelly painting at a Samphire group painting workshop at Dover Big Local.
Photo shows Elizabeth and Jason at one of the Samphire group painting workshops at Dover Big Local.
Photo shows a Samphire group painting workshop at Dover Big Local.
Photo shows Ema and Rachel at a Samphire group painting workshop at Dover Big Local.
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
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.
Joy martindale 