I am so pleased to share the ‘AS WE RISE: PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE BLACK ATLANTIC’ exhibition is now open at the Saatchi gallery. The show is of a curated selection of photographs from the Wedge collection, Canada’s largest privately-owned collection committed to championing Black artists, curated by Liz Ikiriko. Whilst not included in this current …
“Don’t be normal. Don’t be normal ever!” Joy Gregory says with a throaty laugh. Known for her boundary-bending photography that tackles weighty subject matter with arresting beauty, the artist has spent 40 years pursuing a creative path that is uniquely her own – and anything but normal. Now, the fruit of that labour will …
“For an artist who has always been as concerned with listening as with looking, Joy Gregory’s first major retrospective feels less like a career survey than a continuing dialogue. Indeed, while the exhibition itself has been three years in the making and covers 40 years’ worth of work, Gregory says it has been more a …
“The visual artist Joy Gregory’s retrospective exhibition Catching Flies with Honey opens at the Whitechapel Gallery today. As an artist Joy explores identity, history, race, gender and societal ideals of beauty all while pushing the possibilities of photography and other media. She discusses her life and work.” Presented by Nuala McGovern, produced by Kirsty Starkey. …
Jo Lawson-Tancred recommends Catching Flies With Honey as an unmissable show to catch in London. “Early self-portraits and private domestic scenes, both from the early 1990s, offer a highly personal take on Black womanhood. Later works, like Memory and Skin (1998) and Seeds of Empire (2021), are ambitious, research-led explorations of colonial history. A deep sensitivity and humanity …
“In Britain, it’s stereotypically assumed that the weather is an innocuous topic, free of controversy. Yet, depending on one’s circumstances, within its conviviality are less-than-comfortable thoughts and memories. Joy Gregory and composer Philip Miller’s 2021 video Observations: Rose is a slideshow mostly consisting of photographs of Jamaica’s luscious vegetation and the Caribbean Sea, in different …
Fiona Mckenzie Johnston writes: “Joy Gregory has been a pioneering force in contemporary photography for four decades, but this show is her first major survey in a British institution, and comes as a result of her winning the Freelands Award. Using a diverse range of media and methods, from Victorian photographic techniques to digital media …
“There weren’t many Black students at the Royal College of Art when Joy Gregory was a student in the 1980s, but she did study alongside artist and Blk Art Group founder Keith Piper, who was putting together a Black photography exhibition. “He asked me if I would submit some work,” says the 65-year-old artist. Piper had liked …
Fast Forward features Catching Flies With Honey in their events journal online. The link to the full feature can be found here.
Time Out London recommends Catching Flies With Honey in a preview written by India Lawrence. “Since the early ’80s, British artist Joy Gregory has been a pioneer in contemporary photography. Now, after four decades of work exploring identity, history, race, gender and societal ideals of beauty, her first major show arrives at Whitechapel Gallery. The …