Janet Currier
The sculptures, installations and paintings I make, explore everyday experiences like the 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. Although my starting point is often intensely autobiographical, my work examines universal and shared themes of physical vulnerability, care, motherhood, resilience and transformation.
Pattern and repetition and rhythm are a central to my work. Repeated gestures and forms are a metaphor for the diurnal work of looking after others. It’s labour that seems to be on a never ending loop that is constantly overlooked. It is toil that is monotonous but somehow miraculous in its skill ( and it’s love).
The female and maternal body is never far away. Soft sculpture installations suggest flesh that is 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 leaking or somehow not quite able to contain itself or the memories held within.
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 studied Fine Art at Leeds university and completed my MFA at Goldsmiths in 2017. I received the Warden’s Art Purchase Prize in 2017 and my work is held in various private and public collections, including the Goldsmiths College Collection. I was awarded the first Elephant Residency in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Denton Art Prize in 2021. Recent shows include: Substrate, No Format Gallery London (2018), Waiting Room: Deptford X (2018), After Hours, San Mei Gallery London( 2019); Fuzzy Objects, San Mei Gallery (2020); Hell or High Water, Light Vessel 21, Gravesend, Kent (2020); Denton Art Prize exhibition (2021); Before the moon I am, Hoxton Arches, London (2022), Fetish at Greatorex Street Gallery (2023); It Comes From Inside, Bell House Dulwich (2023) Holding Space, Hospital Rooms, Hauser and Wirth, London (2023) Extempore 24, Tension Fine Art, London (2024)
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
Solo and two person Exhibitions
2018 Waiting Room, Deptford x Fringe, Waldron Health Centre, London SE8
2014 Let me go to the window, Harts Lane Studios, New Cross, London
2011 Small things, big thoughts, Deptford X, London
Group Exhibitions
2024 Extempore 24, Tension Fine Art, London
2023 Holding Space, Hospital Rooms at Hauser and Wirth, London
It’s Coming From Inside, Bell House, Dulwich, London
Fetish, Greatorex Studios, London
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
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
In conversation with Mothership, December 2016 in Curating the Contemporary,
