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 and she is also a volunteer Alumni Mentor for UCL.
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. 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.
About Me
I am currently running a new community outreach project called Nice To Meet You / Som Rado Hoij Tumen Spindzardom. For this project, in partnership with the charity Samphire, I am working with Slovak and Czech Roma women living in Dover. We will collaborate over a series of workshops to create artworks that will be exhibited at Turner Contemporary in December 2021. This project has been made possible by National Lottery supported Arts Council England grant funding and a grant from Counterpoint Arts.
In July, I concluded an Arts Council England funded research and development project called The Liberating Gesture. The grant funded research into a new participatory artmaking project and six months professional development focusing on painting with the support of a Turps Correspondence Course mentor. The title and focus of the research project was inspired by Etel Adnan’s words: “I love the pleasure of painting and why shouldn’t I be happy… the act of making art is happy. It is a liberating gesture.”
In October 2019, I was awarded an Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant to run my second art-making community project. This project was also supported by National Lottery Heritage Funding. In partnership with Canterbury Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) and English Heritage, I worked with young unaccompanied refugees and asylum seekers to create a participatory artwork, Trailblazers, which was exhibited at Walmer Castle. The project gave participants the opportunity to express their individuality and their creative potential, and feel a sense of community through engaging in a collective experience.
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
2021 Cohort.Art Group Show
2021 31st Aug- 5th Sept, In Response, Group Show, The Nunnery, Bow, London
2020 29th February-19 April, Trailblazers, Walmer Castle, Kent
2020 21st-23rd January, Savage 2020 Exhibition, St Pancras Crypt, London
Dec 2019 Juried Group Show, Derek’s Room, Studio 3 Gallery, University of Kent
2019 18-28th October 2019, Lilacs In Bloom, Platforma 5 Festival, Jarman Building, University of Kent
2019 16th-23rd February 2019, Lilacs In Bloom, My Gallery, Dover Smart Project
2018 6th-7th & 13-14th October, Women Space, Desperate Artwives Group Show, London
2018 6th-21 October, Group Show, Wells Contemporary 2018
2016 8th -22nd October, Group Show, Wells Contemporary 2016
2016 Postcard Auction, Oasis, Margate, Kent
2015 August -September, Solo Show, Pop Up Gallery, Deal, Kent
2015 16th -22nd June, 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
2020-2021 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
