Approved: 15.08.2017

Janet Currier

Artist, Community worker, Gallery educator, Project manager, Teacher

Approved: 15.08.2017
 
 

Artist Statement

My work explores an internal world where memories and emotions bubble up to the surface. The sculptures, installations and paintings that I make are a way of processing everyday experiences like the feelings of joy and messiness of being a mother, the anxiety of sickness and the stress trying to hold it all together in an increasingly precarious world. 

Pattern and repetition are central to my work. Repeated marks and motifs in drawings, or the masses of soft pink forms in installations, are a metaphor for the labour of caring. It is work that seems to be on a never ending but constantly overlooked loop. It is monotonous but somehow miraculous in its skill. 

All the time female and maternal body is never far away. Soft sculpture installations suggest raw flesh that is uncomfortably squashed and compressed. Sometimes the shape of a body, or an imagined internal view is seen in the work. It is most often a body that is under attack, a body being probed or sick or leaking and somehow not quite able to contain itself. 
 

Recent works reference bodily processes at a microscopic level where cells mutate, viruses multiply, and diseases threaten to engulf. We are reminded of the fragility of our existence, and our interdependence with a multiverse of organisms that we don’t yet understand.

I live and work in London. I received her MFA from Goldsmiths in 2017, winning the Warden’s Art Prize that year. My work is held in various private and public collections including Goldsmiths College Collection. I was awarded the first Elephant Residency at Griffin Studios in 2017 and was recently shortlisted for the Denton Prize. 

 

CV & Education

Education

M.F.A Fine Art   University of London – Goldsmiths College  2017                                                                                                                              

M.A. Applied Anthropology and Youth and Community Work  University of London - Goldsmiths College       1995

 B.A. Hons Fine Art 2.1, University of Leeds                                                                                       1986

 

Exhibitions and Awards

2022  Before the moon I am, Hoxton Arches, London

2021  Shortlisted for the Denton Art Prize 10, London

2020  Hell or Highwater, Lightvessel21, Gravesend, Kent

          Fuzzy Objects, San Mei Gallery, Brixton, London

2019  Afterhours, San Mei Gallery, Brixton, London

2018  Waiting Room, Deptford x Fringe, First Floor waiting area, Waldron Health Centre, London      

          Entitled, The Spike, Bristol

          Substrate,No Format Gallery, Deptford London

2017  Guest Artist APT Open Studios, London

          MFA Degree Show, Goldsmiths College

          Wardens Purchase Prize, Goldsmiths College, London

          Mothership 2, Bruton Arts Factory, Bruton Somerset

2016  Mothership, The Sawmills, Wandsworth, London

2014  Safespace, The Shipwright's Palace, Deptford, London  

          Let me go to the window, Harts Lane Studios, New Cross, London

2013  Otherworldly, Harts Lane Studios, New Cross, London 

          Light Houses, Telegraph Hill Film Festival, New Cross, London

2011  Small things, big thoughts, 2 Woman Show, Deptford X Fringe Programme

          100 pictures 100 words, The Hill Station, Telegraph Hill, London

2010   Telegraph Hill Festival, London

2007   Recent Fruit, Paul Mcpherson Gallery, Greenwich, London

2006   Six, Paul Mcpherson Gallery, Greenwich, London

 

Residencies and Creative engagement projects

2018-21 Vincent’s Treasures and other creative education projects with local schools and youth groups at Van Gogh House and San Mei Gallery in London

2017-18 Elephant Residency - painting residency with Elephant Magazine hosted by Griffin Studios at Colarts, West London

2010-11 Airborne Families - design and delivery of creative evaluation workshops for Scarabeus Aerial Theatre Company

2006   Changing Spaces, Discover/ Maryland Primary School, Newham, London

2010    Tate Modern / Southwark Adult and Family Learning Service - short course for “hard to reach” families with young children aimed at increasing their access to the collection: Artist Educator

2010    Be in the Know – Young Leaders Magazine Bermonsdey Street, London SE1

2009   Change Schools Programme, Chingford Community School/ A New Direction

2007-9 Visual Arts Residency/ Family Learning workshop leader Rotherhithe Primary School, Southwark/ Café Gallery Southwark Park

2008   Green Team Mural Project, St Andrew’s School Islington, London


Publications:

Walsh, Roxy: Amitie, in Fuzzy Objects: Amitie, June 2020

Sundby, Stephanie Serrano. «Det vokser, formeres og spres: En essayistisk analyse av ulike former for fysisk vekst.» Periskop - Forum for Kunsthistorisk Debat, nr. 22. (2019): 114 -119. 

Why are we still in the cracks? Pp10-14, Still We Rise: Art Within the Cracks: Vol 1, December 2019

Janet Currier: Motherhood and Microbiology, pp 88-89,Elephant Magazine, Issue 35, summer 2018

 5 Questions with Janet Currier– Emily Steer for Elephant: https://elephant.art/5-questions-with-janet-currier/#.WgC91RD5DHk.facebook

In conversation with Mothership, December 2016 in Curating the Contemporary, 

Mothership – celebrating the Role of the Mother Artist, Mothership exhibition review in Life as a human, January 24th2017, by AJ Delany and Alix Mortimer