To coincide with the RHA 200th year celebrations, this series of public talks will feature recent associate members who have been elected to the RHA to talk about their practice and reflect upon their place and role within the academy structure. The series will continue in 2024 with further talks from both associate members and invited artists from outside the academy who work in collectives to look at the ongoing role of the group dynamic in supporting and sustaining artists’ practice.
Artist Bio:
Joy Gerrard was born in Co. Tipperary and lives in Belfast, working from Queen Street Studios. She graduated with a BA from NCAD, Dublin and an MA and MPhil from the Royal College of Art, London. Her career has seen specialisations in printmaking, photography, painting and large scale public sculptures. Gerrard is known for work that investigates different systems of relations between crowds, architecture and the built environment. Using Japanese ink on paper and canvas Gerrard makes detailed ink works which re-create recent political protests from around the world.
In early 2020, Gerrard participated in a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. The result was a new body of work culminating in Precarious Freedom: Crowds, Flags, Barriers which toured from the Highlanes Gallery, (2021) to Galway International Arts Festival and the Butler Gallery. Other recent solo exhibitions include Testing/testing, Source Arts centre, Thurles, Put it to the People at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2020), supermarket in Stockholm with Ormston House (2019), shot crowd at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2017) and Protest Crowd, Peer UK, London (2015). Selected group exhibitions include; Image as Protest, a two person show with Paula Rego, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, (2023), Collage. A Political Act at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, (2022), Neither an elegy nor a manifesto at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, (2021). Protest and Remembrance, Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, (2019), Making History, Vienna, (2019) and In a Dream You Saw A Way To Survive and You Were Full of Joy; Hayward Gallery Touring show, (2016). She has installed multiple public installations since 2004 including major works in the London School of Economics, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Tideway (London) and Facebook (London and Dublin). In 2020 Gerrard was elected an Associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. She is represented by Cristea Roberts Gallery, London. Gerrard is a 2023 Golden Art Foundation Fellow.
Image Credit: Barrier, London (March 2021, Westminster) (2021) Japanese ink on linen. Folding eight panel screen with frame. 800 x 200cm. Installation view. Butler Gallery, Kilkenny. 2022. Photo Ros Kavanagh
