About
Joy C Martindale is a visual artist based in the UK. Since graduating with a Masters from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2004, she has exhibited in Germany and the UK, and created and run participatory art-making community projects. Joy is currently enrolled on the Turps Correspondence Course.
Artist’s Statement
“[Joy’s paintings are] giving me something that is not cemented in the knowingness of the world, but in my enquiring about it. They are not telling me what I know but are journeying with my thoughts, making the invisible possible.”
Andrea Medjesi-Jones, guest mentor review on the Turps Correspondence Course (2021)
I strive to make works that are full of vitality and have affective impact on their audience. Working primarily in water-based mediums, I use a call and response approach to make abstract paintings. There is always a stimulus, whether it is personal experience, or a piece of music, something I have read or heard, a colour observed or a previous sketch in my notebooks. Sometimes I hold on to that starting point through the whole journey of making a work and sometimes I let it go; or it can be a mixture of both and I will respond to a range of calls.
These are part of a number of devices I employ to structure the process of making a painting. I make my work in stages, reflecting and planning in between each stage. Within each stage I work in an expressive way engaging with the materiality of paint and using calligraphic lines and gestures, and repetitions of motifs to create rhythmic arrangements and structures. I think a lot about ambiguity and placement and I always have in my head a notion that what I am seeking is to make something happen within a painting.
Memories, sensations and experiences are uncertain and their connections to the abstract works that they inform and inspire are tentative; nevertheless, they are also integral to the story of a painting. From, for example, a piece of music, to my painting, to the viewer is a chain of sensations; these chains of sensations connect us to each other and help us make sense of our realities. The titles of my work and the accompanying short pieces of writing I often produce, highlight and examine these connections.
AWARDS
Sept 2021 Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant Funding Award for Nice To Meet You/Som Rado Hoij Tumen Spindzardom
Oct 2020 Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant Funding Award for The Liberating Gesture (Research and Development project)
Oct 2019 National Lottery Heritage Funding for Walmer Castle Art Project (part of English Heritage’s Re-Discovering Walmer’s Lost Pleasure Grounds Project)
Oct 2019 Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant Funding Award for Walmer Castle Art Project (part of English Heritage’s Re-Discovering Walmer’s Lost Pleasure Grounds Project)
Jan 2019 Dover Town Council Project Grant Funding Award for Lilacs In Bloom (Anti-Slavery Refugee Art Project)
Oct 2018 Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant Funding Award for Lilacs In Bloom (Anti-Slavery Refugee Art Project)
EXHIBITIONS
16th Mar – 8th May 2022 Nice To Meet You/Som Rado Hoij Tumen Spindzardom, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Jan 2022 In Formation, Group Show, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London
Nov 2021 The Lazy Fox Jumps Quickly Over The Brown Fence, Art.Cohort Group Show
31st Aug- 5th Sept 2021 In Response, Group Show, The Nunnery, Bow, London
29th Feb-19 Apr 2020 Trailblazers, Walmer Castle, Kent
21st-23rd Jan 2020 Savage 2020 Exhibition, St Pancras Crypt, London
Dec 2019 Juried Group Show, Derek’s Room, Studio 3 Gallery, University of Kent
18th-28th Oct 2019 Lilacs In Bloom, Platforma 5 Festival, Jarman Building, University of Kent
16th-23rd Feb 2019 Lilacs In Bloom, My Gallery, Dover Smart Project
Oct 2018 Women Space, Desperate Artwives Group Show, London
6th-21 Oct 2018 Group Show, Wells Contemporary 2018
8th -22nd Oct 2016 Group Show, Wells Contemporary 2016
Aug –Sept 2015 Solo Show, Pop Up Gallery, Deal, Kent
16th -22nd Jun 2015 Exhibition of Works, Margate Harbour Arm Gallery, Kent
2014 Solo Show, 13 Coppin Street Gallery, Deal, Kent
2012 Group Show, Otto Steidle Ateliers, Munich
2010 Universal Atlas, Collaborative-Touring Project
2010/9/8/7 Open Studios, Streatham Artists, ASC Studios, London
PUBLISHED WORK
2021 Savage Magazine Issue 13 (Cover Art) http://www.savageonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Savage-13-v.4.pdf
2020 Savage Magazine Issue 12 http://www.savageonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Savage-Issue-12-v.4.pdf
2017 The Burden of My Anxieties, Made In Plymouth magazine
http://madeinplymouth.co.uk/project/the-burden-of-my-anxieties/
INTERVIEWS
2017 March 17th, 2017, Interview with Mira Tudor, Founder of The Art Dive
EDUCATION
2020-2022 Turps Correspondence Course
2005-2006 PGCE (Post-Compulsory) Art and Design, Institute of Education
2002-2004 MFA Fine Art (Painting), Slade School of Fine Art
1998-2002 1st Class BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of East London
1997-1998 Foundation Diploma Art and Design, Falmouth University
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
17/11/2016 Completed Arts Award Bronze & Silver adviser training
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