installation view of Winter Open 2024
I’m delighted to have two paintings in the the Southwark Park Gallery Winter Open. An annual fundraiser for this inspiring and prestigious gallery space.
The exhibition is open to the public 11-6pm Weds-Sundays until the 14th December 2024. All the works are for sale and are priced under £750.
See their website for more details or to buy any of the artworks in the show online.
Thank you to everyone who came along to our exhibition at Safehouse in Peckham in September. We were so pleased with how the show was received, and grateful to all our visitors. Next show with FOLD Art Collective will be in March 2025… can’t wait.
Participating Artists: @abigailelverd_artist, @art_and_eleanor @artfledgling, @carmenart_vh, @cass.breen, @clare_nicholson_prints, @hughes.jane60, @jessblandford, @katherinerose360, @mmiabeard@nell.martin.artist
Please join FOLD Art Collective for our exhibition (Un)Visible which opens on Friday 27th September at Safehouse 1 in Peckham. Private View 6-9pm. Exhibition open Saturday 28th-Monday 30th September, 12pm-7pm.
Thank you so much to everyone who went along to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and saw my painting ‘Prams in Hallways’ hanging in room 2. I’m so grateful to Hughie O’Donoghue for selecting it, and to the collector who bought it before the exhibition even opened to the public. This is the second year I’ve been selected but the first time I could go to Varnishing Day. It’s such a special day where all the artists walk in procession down Picadilly to St James’ for the ‘blessing of the artists’ service before heading back to the gallery to admire each others’ work.
The female art collective I have been a member of since 2021 has three new members and a great new name. We’re now called FOLD Art Collective. We are twelve women artists who developed their art practices following other careers and responsibilities. We meet monthly to critique and encourage each other's work in progress. It’s a hugely sustaining part of my practice!
Underneath it all
Jess Blandford, 2024
Oil paint on ready-made shelf
20 x 60 x 15cm
Not for sale
My contribution to a collaborative project called SHELVED with the Second Shift Art Collective.
The shelf is empty. Usually a space to keep precious things safe. To show off prized possessions. The shelf itself goes unnoticed. An everyday, mundane structure at eye level. So ordinary, you might walk past without even seeing it. But bend and twist your body, duck and peer beneath. You’ll spot something seeping down the struts that hold this shelf up. On the underside is an oil painting. Layers of gestural marks, pools of colour, messy scribbles and erasures. Abstract expressionism - traditionally full of machismo and high cultural value - here hidden. Trying to pay tribute to the invisible work of support. Physical, mental & emotional loads often carried without being seen or valued. The unpaid labour of care that quietly holds up global economies, as well as our everyday lives.
The Second Shift Art Collective is a group of women artists who have developed their art practices later in life, following other careers & responsibilities. Throughout 2024 each of the 12 artists in the group are invited to make work in response to the idea of an ordinary domestic shelf.
Each month one artist brings her ‘shelf’ to the group crit for discussion, and writes a short text to accompany the work. In this way the project accumulates over a year, with the collection of ‘shelves’ influenced by previous ideas and the ongoing discussion. The project will be seen unfolding throughout the year on Instagram and will culminate in an exhibition of all 12 works in 2025.
Follow on instagram @second.shift_art.collective
So delighted that my painting Good Enough (Green) has been chosen for the front cover of the brochure for this year’s Dulwich Festival Artists’ Open House. Please do drop by to see my latest abstract paintings and drawings and. some limited edition prints. This year I’m only open the first weekend of the festival (11th and 12th May 11am-6pm), so come then to avoid disappointment!
I’m delighted this painting has been shortlisted for the RA Summer Exhibition 2024:
Prams in Hallways, 2023.
Acrylic & Charcoal on linen
25x36cm
I named it after the famous quote by literary critic Cyril Connolly from ‘Enemies of Promise’ published in 1938.
“There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway”
The theme of this year’s RA Summer Exhibition is ‘Making Space’, and the selection committee is headed up by Ann Christopher, and includes Cornelia Parker (a hero of mine). Like many of my paintings it tries to express something of the complexity and intensity of the physical, emotional and mental load of family life. The world has changed immeasurably since Cyril Connolly was writing (about male creativity) in 1938, but the challenge of making ‘good art’ (or good anything!) without mental and physical space certainly persists. Recently my ‘hallways’ have felt very full of ‘prams’ as my studio time has been severely curtailed by unexpected additional childcare responsibilities. That’s why it means so much that this painting has been ‘seen’ by the judges.
Keep your fingers crossed that it makes it to the final selection!
Some installation photos from the Second Shift Art Collective’s inaugural show at Safehouse 2, Peckham in December 2023.
The Second Shift Art Collective, December 2023
Layers of Being is the inaugural show of the Second Shift Art Collective. The works of the 9 artists involved, weave together stories, memories, secrets, objects, time and identities. The show includes paintings, textiles, sculpture, video and print-making, exhibited in the forgotten space of a derelict Victorian terraced house in Peckham. The works engage with this eroded domestic space.
Friday 8th December: Private View: 6-9pm
Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th December: 11am-5pm
Monday 11th December: 11am-2pm.
Safe House 2
137 Copeland Road
London, SE15 3SN
The Second Shift Art Collective is a group of women artists who have developed their art practice later in life, following other careers. The independent work the collective produces crosses many disciplines including: sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, photography and installation; and the artists’ interests are wide-ranging. What holds the Collective together is a shared sensitivity to materials, time and space; to the depth of other experiences that each artist brings to her practice; and to the relational contexts in which work is created.
The Collective meets in person monthly to critique and encourage one another’s work in progress, and uses whatsapp as a collaborative forum to inspire, rage, laugh, cheer and galvanise.
The Second Shift Collective has this agenda at its heart: to generously give support, space and voice to the work of mid-life women artists who are often invisible in contemporary culture.
@abigailelverd_artist
@artfledgling
@cass.breen
@clare_nicholson_prints
@art_and_eleanor
@francesca.giuliano.here
@jessblandford
@katherinerose360
@nell.martin.artist
This exhibition brings my recent abstract paintings into conversation with Marina Beard’s poetic skyscapes. Marina & I are both resident artists at the Mansion in Beckenham Place Park. The work is very different but our daily discussions about art and life fuels both practices.
On Friday 1st December we are having a relaxed Private View from 6-8.30pm. Please do drop by and join us for a friendly chat and a drink while you see the work. Hope to see you there.
Find us at the Jeannie Avent Gallery, 14 North Cross Road, East Dulwich, London, SE22 9EU
Opening Hours
Saturday 25th November 10am - 6pm
Sunday 26th November 10am - 6pm
Thursday 30th November 10am - 3pm
Friday 1st December 12pm - 5pm
Friday 1st Private View 6pm - 8.30pm
Saturday 2nd December 10am - 6pm
Sunday 3rd December 10am - 6pm
So delighted to have 4 of my paintings selected for the Women in Art Fair at the Mall Galleries this October. Running alongside Frieze, it aims to highlight and redress gender imbalance in the art industry. It was great to meet so many interesting women artists at the Private View, and to be part of this important conversation about the representation and value of female artists’ work. Thank you so much to the judges for selecting my work.
I’m thrilled beyond bits that one of my paintings has been selected for The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. It’s the first time I've entered, and it’s very exciting to see my work on those esteemed walls with so many famous artists that I love. The theme this year is ‘Only Connect’ and has been curated by David Remfrey RA. The exhibition is open from 13th June until 20th August at the RA on Piccadilly. If you go please look for it in Room IX (selected by Eileen Cooper RA).
The original painting is only for sale via the RA, but I have a limited edition print available on the website. It is a beautiful quality Giclee print on Hahnmule German etching paper (edition of 200), in a 50x50cm mount for £100 (including P&P).
What a blast I had at Artist’s Open House this year. It was the first time I’ve done both weekends, which was pretty full on. But boy was it worth it!! So many lovely people came, and I sold almost all of the work on show. I am so very grateful to everyone who decided to give one of my works a new home. I hope they bring you much pleasure! x
This past year I have been taking the Advanced Painting class at Morley College with the brilliant tutor Steve Wright. We celebrate with a group show at the Barry Till Gallery on the first floor in Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Road (near Lambeth North tube). You are warmly invited to the Private View on Wednesday 14th June, 6-8pm. The show runs until 29th June. But in case you’re not able to come here’s one of the paintings I am exhibiting. It’s the biggest I’ve made so far (100X100cm).
Early Morning Must Do List
Jess Blandford, 2023
Acrylic & charcoal on canvas (unframed)
100x100cm (unframed) - £1500
My painting The Idea of Goodness (after Carol Shields), Oil on gesso board, 2022, has been shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer show this year. It's the first time I've entered and I was so happy go last week to deliver my painting for the judges to make their final selection. This photo is slightly wonky as it was taken by my kids (the teacher strike meant they had to come too) but I think the tilt rather nicely captures my excitement! Please keep your fingers crossed that I make the cut.
I’m so grateful to everyone who bought one of my original line drawings for International Woman’s Day this week. I can’t believe all eight sold that day. Sorry to those who wanted one but missed out this time.
I will be making some more for Dulwich Artists Open House which is happening 13th & 14th and 20th & 21st May. And really hope you’ll be able to come and take a look then.
I’ll be giving subscribers to my mailing list a sneak peek online before we open the doors. So if you’d like to be the first to see the next collection please sign up on my contact page.
Today I’m enjoying wrapping them up nicely, to be mailed out tomorrow.
I’ve just waved goodbye to this small oil painting as it’s heading off to Venice for a show of 15 women artists at Villa Lattes. The exhibition is to celebrate International Women’s Day and commemorate the New York shirtwaist strike of 1090 (sometimes known as the uprising of the 20,000) when female garment workers successfully renegotiated pay and working conditions for women in New York’s sweatshops.
I’m very happy to have been selected to be part of this group show with female labour at it’s heart. The invisible and unpaid work that women do (on top of their jobs) to keep family life running smoothly is something I try to explore through my paintings and drawings. Attempting to make this ordinary, mundane and undervalued labour a subject worthy of fine art.
Second Shift, 2022
Oil paint on 5 x 7” gesso board
23.5 x 28.5cm open framed
I’m delighted to announce that two of my recent oil paintings (Good Enough?, 2022 and Holding it Together, 2022) will be on show at the Southwark Park Lake Gallery from Saturday 12th November until Saturday 3rd December, as part of the contemporary art gallery’s annual Open exhibition. Do come and check it out.
The Southwark Park Gallery (described by Iain Sinclair as “the best kept arts secret in Britiain” is a wonderful space to see and show work. I would highly recommend you check out their programme at www.southwarkparkgalleries.org.
“We are recognised locally and nationally as a leading, experimental contemporary visual arts venue in London with an established reputation as a test-site for ambitious artistic practice. We were founded in 1984 by a group of artists living in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. They transformed a derelict café in Southwark Park into a gallery to create a cultural platform through which artists could engage meaningfully with their neighbours and as a site for free access to high quality art, creativity and learning as a core part of their daily lives.
Over the last 38 years, we have commissioned and hosted exhibitions by a wide and diverse range of artists including internationally renowned artists including Joan Jonas, Marcia Farquhar, Phyllida Barlow, Faisal Abdu’Allah, Jonathan Baldock, Fani Parali, Martin Creed, William Wegman, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Tai Shani, Lucian Freud, Peter Liversidge, Carrie Mae Weems, Marcus Coates, Graham Fagen, Richard Wilson, Ackroyd & Harvey, Shona Illingworth, Sammy Baloji, Sharon Kivland, Anne Bean, James Capper, Clare Goodwin, Iain Sinclair & Andrew Kötting, Uta Kögelsberger, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, Mark Titchener, Brian Griffin, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Sarah Pickstone, Mat Collishaw, and Sutapa Biswas.” [www.southwarkparkgalleries.org]
SOUTHWARK PARK GALLERIES // LAKE GALLERY
1 Park Approach
Southwark Park
London SE16 2UA
what3words address: ///friend.sharp.tides
Southwark Park Galleries is well connected via 3 different tube/rail lines, with 4 stations at each corner of Southwark Park, and many bus routes. We are 2 stops from London Bridge.
UNDERGROUND // Canada Water on the Jubilee and London Overground Lines or Surrey Quays on the London Overground. Canada Water station is seven minutes walk from Southwark Park and Surrey Quays is six minutes walk to Lake Gallery and Dilston Gallery.
BUSES // 1, 47, 188, 199, 225, 381, P12, C10. All stop at Canada Water station.
RAIL // South Bermondsey Station
DRIVING // Visitors are encouraged to use public transport where possible. If you are wishing to travel by car please enter Southwark Park via the Southwark Park Road entrance where free parking is available for up to 4 hours in certain areas of the Carriageway (please check parking notices before you leave your vehicle).
CYCLING // Bike racks are available outside Lake and Dilston Galleries, but space is limited.