Biography
Joy Gerrard lives and works in Belfast. She graduated with a BA from NCAD, Dublin and an MA and MPhil from the Royal College of Art, London. Gerrard is known for work that investigates different systems of relations between crowds, architecture and the built environment. Using Japanese ink on paper and canvas Gerrard makes detailed ink works which re-create recent political protests from around the world. Recently she has focused on UK based Brexit demonstrations and the Trump resistance in the USA.
Recent solo exhibitions include ‘supermarket‘ in Stockholm with Ormston House (2019), ‘shot crowd ’at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2017) and Protest Crowd, Peer UK, London (2015). Selected group exhibitons include: Protest and Remembrance, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, 2019, Graphic Witness at the Drawing Room, London, 2017 and In a Dream You Saw A Way To Survive and You Were Full of Joy; Hayward Gallery Touring show (2016) She has installed multiple public installations since 2004 including major works in the London School of Economics, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, for Tideway (London) and Facebook ( London and Dublin) Gerrard has just completed a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (2020).
Artist Statement
What happens when democratic processes express, even produce, social and political divisions? How are the outcomes of such processes – sometimes only narrowly won - resisted and critiqued? How moreover, do such processes make use of visual-cultural means to, as the writer Rebecca Solnit puts it: ‘make injury visible’? As a spectacle of resistance, public protest has a long history, but persists as a powerful form of expression in a time of conflict and instant, ‘citizen enabled’ global media.
Drawing on over a decade of image-making and research on themes of protest and urban space, Irish artist Joy Gerrard archives and painstakingly remakes media-borne crowd images, including those from the Arab Risings, Occupy, and anti- Trump protests. Alongside abstract film pieces, these are re-imaged in large monochrome paintings and small complex drawings made with Japanese ink. Gerrard’s crowds are viewed from above, suggesting the remove of media surveillance, while the fluidity and drama of their moment is expressed through precise, expressive mark-making. Repeatedly framed within built environments that give them significance and constrain them, moments of protest are figured against more enduring historical structures, while the re-scaling of news images into dramatic, painterly forms disrupts their everyday significations, provoking reflection on the place of art, witnessing and representation.
Gerrard’s most recent work documents the huge protests against Brexit that took place in Central London between 2018/19. Here, her monochrome palette comes to invoke the binary oppositions of contemporary British politics, it’s elemental simplicity belying a more complex meditation on the imaging of protest. At a time when mutual recognition and shared meaning have become precarious, here at least, the resistant are a presence to be contemplated.
Joy Gerrard
Curriculum Vitae
joy.gerrard@network.rca.ac.uk
Tel; 0044-7990591906
www.joygerrard.net
Education
2008 Royal College of Art, London, M. Phil. Practice-based Fine Art Research
2001 Royal College of Art, London, M.A. Fine Art Print
1995 National College of Art and Design, Dublin, B.A. Fine Art Printmaking
1993 Crawford College of Art, Cork, Diploma, Fine Art Painting
Selected Exhibitions
Solo
2020 ‘A Crowd Exists’ The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast ( Date TBC 20/21)
2019 Solo presentation, Ormston House, Art Supermarket, Stockholm
2018 ‘fractured crowd’, Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford
2018 The North is Next, Billboard Project, Kingsgate Gallery, London
2017 'shot crowd', Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin and MCAC, Portadown. NI
2015 'Protest Crowd', PEER, London
2009 'Space, Fear and the Multitude', MCAC, Portadown, Northern Ireland
2007 'The Longest Day', Acava Studios, London
2003 'The Crowd Transfixed', Temple Bar Galleries, Dublin
2002 'Fractured Flow', Judith Wall Gallery, New York, Sara Pearce Fine Art, London
Other
2020 Cristea Roberts Gallery, The Armoury, New York
2020 Moving Spaces, Glucksman Gallery, Cork
2019 Irish Art, Sothebys. London
2019 John Gerrard/Joy Gerrard. Making History. Vienna Art Week. Vienna
2019 Royal Ulster Academy, Ulster Museum
2019 Protest and Remembrance, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London
2019 Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Exhibition, Dublin
2019 Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Contemporary Art Society, London
2019 Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London
2018 Crossing Lines. Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda and FE McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge
2018 Destroy All Heroes, Peripheries Space, Wexford
2018 Intro, Queen Street studios, Belfast
2017 Graphic Witness, Drawing Room, London
2017 Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London
2017 Royal Hibernian Academy, Summer Exhibition 2017. Invited Artist.
2016 MAC International. Exhibition and Ulster Bank Award (forthcoming) The MAC. Belfast
2016 In a Dream You Saw A Way To Survive and You Were Full of Joy. Hayward Gallery Touring show (UK) Curated by Elizabeth Price.
2016 Royal Hibernian Academy, Summer Exhibition 2016
2016 Contemporary Curated, Sotheby's, London
2015 Contemporary Drawing, Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, China
2015 Royal Hibernian Academy, Summer Exhibition 2015
2015 Drawing Biennial 2015, Drawing Room, London
2014 Permanent Rainbow, A site specific installation on Lough Derg, Terryglass, Ireland
2013 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013, Jerwood Space, London and touring
2013 Project Space, material, Los Angeles
2013 Drawing Biennial 2013, Drawing Room, London
2012 182nd RHA Annual Exhibition, Invited Artist, RHA; Dublin
2012 Double Take, Studio 3 Gallery, University of Kent
2011 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, Jerwood Space, London and touring
2010 Research Exhibition, Royal College of Art, London
2009 Then and Now, Evolving Art Practices, Glucksman Gallery, Cork
2009 The Space Between, The Crypt, Kings, Cross, London
2009 1/2/3/4. Graphica Creativa 09, Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Finland
2008 AIB Award, AIB exhibition space, Dublin
2008 John Gerrard/Joy Gerrard, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
2007 The Aesthetics of Space, Ubu, Glasgow
2007 Mandscapes, The Ark, Dublin and touring
2007 The Great Exhibition 2007, Royal College of Art, London
2007 The Man Group Drawing exhibition, Royal College of Art, London
2006 The square root of drawing; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
2006 Small and Monumental, Municipal Gallery, Waterford
2006 Interim Research Exhib, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
2006 Dark in the Park, café gallery projects, London
2006 Passing Through, The Glucksman Gallery, Cork
2005 The Workroom Press, The Workspace, Dublin
2005 Garden of Earthly Delights, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and touring
2004 Crawford Open 5, Crawford Gallery, Cork
2004 Three Artists, Galleria Harmonia, Jyvaskyla, Finland
2004 The Cracked Looking Glass, The Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin
2004 Art Futures, Contemporary Art Society, London
2003 Elsewhere from Here, The Workspace, Dublin
2003 Iontas, Small works exhibition, Sligo Art Gallery, Sligo and touring
2003 Thy Neighbours Ox, Space Station Sixty Five, London
2002 Gach Ait Eile (Every Other Place), Belmont Avenue, Dublin
Residencies
2020 Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (Jan-Mar 2020)
1999 Pepinieres Artist in Residence, Jyvaskyla, Finland
1997 Artist in Residence, Cork Printmakers, Ireland
Public Art Commissions
2019 Mapping the Scene and Unseen 2. Mural and Photographic installation, Facebook, Ballsbridge, Dublin
2017/18 And the ground shook, Wall Mural, Facebook, Oxford Circus, London
2016/17 Tideways Tunnel Commission, (Double Exterior Commission) Photographic and digital print), Blackfriars Bridge. London
2016 Mapping the Scene and Unseen. Perspex, Mural and Photographic, Facebook, Euston Road, London
2015 Centre, Move, Map, Sculptural Work, Percent for Art scheme, Borrisokane College, Tipperary
2014 Dawn/Dusk, Sculptural Glass work, and complementary 2D works for the Phoenix Care Centre, Percent for Art Scheme. Grangegorman Development Authority, Dublin
2012 Assembly/450, and Assemble/Map/Move, Sculptural and Photographic work. commissioned by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital; London
2008 Elenchus/Aporia, commissioned by the London School of Economics and the Contemporary Art Society; LSE, New Academic Building, Kingsway, London
2006 Crowd, Installation for Webworks Building, Cork. Commissioned by Scott, Tallon and Walker Architects
2006 Strata, Percent for Art scheme, commissioned by the Office of Public Works; Installed Galway City Museum, Galway
2005 Flow, Percent for Art scheme, commissioned by Cork University Hospital, Cork
2003/5 Route, Floor based work, commissioned by Land Securities, Victoria, London
2003/4 Cloud, Sculptural work commissioned by the Office of Public Works; The Glen, Waterford
Third Level Lecturing
2003/5 Full-time Lecturer in Visual Art Practice (Print), School of Creative Arts, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland.
Conferences/ Public Presentation/Visiting Lectures
2019 How the Image Echoes ( panel paper) The MAC. Belfast
2019 Protest and Remembrance. Panel. Alan Cristea Gallery, London
2019 Painting Mentoring. Visual Artists Ireland. Dublin
2018 MAAP. Graduation Address. Crawford College of Art. Cork
2018 Sustaining your Practice. Panel Member. Bealtaine Festival. RHA school, Dublin
2017 Visiting Lecturer, School of Fine Art, Newcastle
2017 Course Leader, The Body Politic. Summer School. Drawing Room, London
2017 Protest Crowds and Precarious Freedom. Camberwell College of Art, London
2017 Artists in Protest (panel paper). Drawing Room, London
2017 'shot crowd' Visiting lectures. RHA, IADT, NCAD
2017 Masterclass. Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2017 Hermione Lecture, Alexandra College, Dublin
2017 Visiting Lecturer. School of Fine Art. Wexford IT.
2016 Protest Crowd, The Centre Cannot Hold. Architecture and Power, Calvert 22 gallery and University College London (Paper)
2016 Conflict, Presence and Absence. Urban Encounters. Goldsmiths University, London. In association with Tate Britain, Goldsmiths, Kingston and Falmouth Universities (Paper)
2015 Precarious Freedom In conversation with Rut Blees Luxemburg, Peer, London
2015 Visiting Lecturer, Project and Process, Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork
2014 Visiting Lecturer, National College of Art and Design, Dublin
2011 Visiting Lecturer, School of Graphics and Photography, Kingston University
2010 Visiting Lecturer, Space, Fear and the Multitude, Research Department, RCA
2008 Visiting Lecturer, Public Projects, London School of Economics, London
2007 Artist Teacher, Sculptors in Schools programme, ACAVA and Hammersmith Schools, Blechynden Street, London
2007 Visiting Lecturer, School of Architecture, Cambridge University
2001 Visiting Lecturer in Fine Art; Falmouth College of Art, Cornwall and School of Fine Art, University of East Anglia
Selected Awards
2019 Selector Award. Royal Ulster Academy
2016 The MAC International Award (shortlist), MAC, Belfast
2016 Visual Arts Bursary, The Arts Council of Ireland
2015 The ORTHO Mid Career Artist Award, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2011 Visual Arts Bursary. The Arts Council of Ireland
2008 The AIB Artist award, Shortlist and Exhibitor
2007 Winner, Man Group drawing prize, London, 2007
2006 Professional Training and Development Award, The Arts Council of Ireland
2005 Professional Training Award, The Arts Council of Ireland
2005/7 Research Bursary, The Royal College of Art
2005 Arts Bursary, Dublin Corporation
2002 Travel and Mobility Award, The Arts Council of Ireland
2001 The D.L.A. Graduate Art Award, Finalist, D.L.A., London
2001 Lattice Award for Sustainability, The Lattice Group, London
2000 Michael Byrne Award, The Arts Council Of Ireland
1999 European Artists Pepinieres Award, Jyvaskyla, Finland (six month residency)
1995 Materials Award, The Arts Council Of Ireland
1995 One Year Tuition and Maintenance Scholarship, Il Bisonte, Florence, awarded by S.D.Space Design, Japan
Selected Bibliography
Reviews/Press/Catalogue/Writings
2020 Joy Gerrard, Explosion, Response and Aftermath The Centre Cannot Hold.
New Monumentality, Neo-Modernity and Other Zombie Urban Utopias.
The Fringe Series. UCL press, London
2020 Yvonne Ihmels. Joy Gerrard; HELIKOPTER- PERSPEKTIV PÅ VÄRLDEN Cora. Culture magazine, Sweden.
2020 Elizabeth Birdthistle. Irish Art at Sotheby’s. [link here]
2019 Guardian Cities. But, How big was it really? The Guardian. 20th March 2019. [link here]
2019 Margarita Cappock. Eagle Eye. The Irish Arts Review. Spring 2019
2019 Sophie Ruigrok. From Charcoal to Lipstick. Frieze Magazine. [link here]
2019 Aidan Dunne. Art in Focus. Joy Gerrard. Protest Crowd, London. The Irish Times. January 5th. 2019. [link here]
2017 Ramon Kassam. Landscape and the built environment. [link here]
2017 Gemma Tipton. Women Artists reclaim History. The Irish Times. September 28th 2017. [link here]
2017 Cristin Leach, Standing out from the Crowd.The Sunday Times. February 12th, 2017 [link here]
2017 Declan Long. Joy Gerrard, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. Frieze. March 2017. [link here]
2017 Gemma Tipton. Joy Gerrard. I was thinking about how crowds react to a space of fear. The Irish Times, Feb 1, 2017 [link here]
2017 Aidan Dunne. Shot Crowd. Joy Gerrard . The Irish Times. February 22nd 2017 [link here]
2017 James Merrigan. Devil. February 2017. [link here]
2016 Lawrence Mackin. Healing Art Award shortlist announced. The Irish Times. March 22nd 2016. [link here]
2016 Joy Gerrard, Explosion, Response and Aftermath The Centre Cannot Hold. New Monumentality, Neo-Modernity and Other Zombie Urban Utopias. The Fringe Series. UCL press, London
2016 Joy Gerrard, Protest Crowd, Text and Image, (cover image), Cultural Politics, Duke University Press
2015 Hatice Utkan, Special Report; Contemporary Drawing, Joy Gerrard, Contemporary Istanbul Magazine (CI MAG). [link here]
2015 Gemma Tipton, Cultural playlist for 2015, The Irish Times, December 19
2015 Caspian Frail, Joy Gerrard at Peer. [link here]
2015 Cristin Leach Hughes, Widen the Circle, The Sunday Times, June 7, 2015
2014 Aidan Dunne, Anarchy and the Art of Survival, The Irish Times, December 7, 2013
2013 Joy Gerrard, Material Press, Art making, Memory, Work and Practice. [link here]
2013 Gemma Tipton, Portrait of a City, The Irish Times, February 13, 2013
2012 Double Take, The Art of Printmaking, Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building
2011 Eliza Apperly; The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, This is Tomorrow, Contemporary Art Magazine
2009 Joy Gerrard, Space, Fear and the Multitude, MCAC. Essay by Fiona Kearney
2008 Aidan Dunne; Tales that are both everyday and exotic, infused with a sense of magic. Joy and John Gerrard at Temple Bar Gallery. May 21, 2008
2008 Sculpting Space. LSE Magazine. Winter 2008
2008 Riann Coulter: The AIB Prize. Irish Arts Review, Summer 2008
2008 Marc O'Sullivan: Artistic Visions. Irish Examiner, June 05, 2008
2007 Sandra Kemp: Research RCA. Royal College of Art, Summer 2007
2007 Joy Gerrard, Strata, Galway City Museum
2006 Marianne O'Kane: Cultural Collaborations. Irish Arts Review, OPW 175th Edition, 2006
2005 Aidan Dunne: Effective and colourful use of space, November 9, 2005
2004 Gemma Tipton: Elsewhere from Here Circa Spring 2004
2003 Aidan Dunne: Alienation once again. The Irish Times, December 29, 2003
2003 Aidan Dunne: Seeing a pattern. The Irish Times, December 5, 2003
1999 Elina Puranen: Cities of Paper, Ink and Metal. Kesleisuomalainen, Jyvaskyla, Finland, September 9, 1999
Collections
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
The Arts Council of Ireland
The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland
The Ark, Dublin, Ireland
Dublin Docklands Authority, Ireland
Urban Initiatives, Dublin, Ireland
The Department of the Environment, Dublin, Ireland.
Office of Public Works, Dublin, Ireland
Allied Irish Bank, Dublin, Ireland
The Bank of Ireland, Ireland
The Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland
The Crawford Gallery, Cork, Ireland
University College Cork, Ireland
Standard Life, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Museum of Central Finland, Jyvaskyla, Finland
Il Bisonte International Centre of Graphic Art, Florence, Italy
The D.L.A. Group, London, UK
The Lattice Group, London, UK
W.J.P Chiltern, London, UK
Facebook, London, UK
Bazalgatte PLC, London, UK