Jo Dennis is a British multi-disciplinary artist living and working in London. She studied her BA in Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College, London. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both in the UK and internationally including at The Royal Academy of Arts and the ICA London. Recent exhibitions include; God of War currently on view with OHSH Projects London, Autonomous Zone, a solo show with Sid Motion Gallery, Hurry Up Please, It’s Time, at Seen Fifteen Gallery London, A Kind of Solid Liquid, a solo show at Sid Motion Gallery London and a solo presentation at Photo London. In 2020 she self-published her artists' book I touched this with my hand, I touched that with my eye with an essay by David Campany. She is the co- founder of Asylum and Maverick Projects, an artist-led organisation running project spaces in London. From 2016-18 she founded and curated AMP Gallery, a not for profit exhibition space. She is the co-founder of Peckham 24 Photography Festival and was the recipient of a Grants for the Arts from Arts Council England.
Jo Dennis
I work across painting, photography, assemblage and installation. My research involves collecting and documenting places and objects which have been left to waste: I photograph abandoned buildings and places, I collect rubbish from the street and purchase used items from Ebay, I respond to this material by incorporating painting and assemblage. You could say I am a bit of a hoarder.
The works I produce address themes related to home, shelter, memory and mortality. Found objects and studio waste are catalysts for work which addresses our emotional connection to places, the transformation of surfaces and objects and how this relates to temporality. I aim to interrogate how a sense of belonging is realised in connection to places of ruination and dereliction. A great part of my focus is on the role paint plays in these spaces and processes, and then how this surface materiality and texture conveys the passing of time. I seek to amplify the sensibilities embodied in these structures, remnants and residual materials in paint.
This from the most recent series titled Absent without Leave uses the army surplus tent as a point of departure. The tent fabric is used both as the physical material to paint upon and to situate the work sociopolitically, exploring ideas of shelter, home, belonging, sanctuary and territory.
The Solid Liquid series uses discarded windows as a substrate, the imagery can be at once a reflection of what is inside or that which is outside, where the interior and exterior can leak into one another. The title of this series Solid Liquid is borrowed from Mark Pendergrast’s book ‘Mirror, Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection’. Solid Liquid refers to the materiality of glass and the significance of the window which has historically been investigated in art history.
