josiemccoyart

[josiemccoyart]

I'm delighted to show my paintings in Margate in ‘Unearthed’, an exhibition from the Quiet Storms Collective.

Private View Info

Please join us for drinks at the Private View of Unearthed. Date: 16 August, 2024 Location: Joseph Wales Studio, 2a Dane Hill, Margate, Kent CT9 1QP Time: 6 pm - 9 pm

Exhibition Info

Dates: 15 - 26 August, 2024 Location: Joseph Wales Studio, 2a Dane Hill, Margate, Kent CT9 1QP Time: 12 pm - 5 pm daily Tickets: Free entry. All welcome.

As a founding member of the Quiet Storms Collective, I’m excited to announce that our first exhibition will take place at Joseph Wales Studio in Margate from August 15 to 26, 2024. Open daily from 12 to 5 pm. All welcome!

Unearthed is an interdisciplinary exhibition by Quiet Storms Collective that brings together a group of local and international contemporary artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who use visual storytelling to question power structures, embody inner-worlds and memories, and reclaim liminal and wondrous spaces.

Featuring painting, photography, mixed-media and sculpture, artists in the exhibition include: Fiona Stewart, JC Candanedo, Jo Mason, Josie McCoy, Kristin Rawcliffe, Laura Hope, Lisa Snook, Sheila MacNeill and Sinead McKillican.

Quiet Storms Collective is a group of contemporary artists transcending borders who are bound by their exploration of untold personal and collective stories. Whether it be stories of land and peoples, or myth and magic, their exceptional talents reveal unspoken emotions that hide on the threshold of strength and vulnerability.

In this exhibition, the artists individually explore echoes of unearthed stories, each in their own way, to capture subversive narratives on a journey towards empowerment, resilience, and positive transformation unravelling power and place. In doing so, they confront the duality of journeying through inner-worlds while rebelling against established structures of power.

Unearthed offers an exclusive insight into their visual language and an opportunity to experience the fusion of their distinct styles.

Work in progress of 'Lady Bird' for Unearthed.

[josiemccoyart]

Art Auction 2019 Central Saint Martins

I have donated a painting to this year’s Central Saint Martin’s Auction to raise funds for the Postgraduate Art Programme.  

I did my MA Fine Art at CSM and was awarded the only bursary offered that year, so I’ve had first-hand experience of how much difference financial support can mean to a young artist.

The auction is on Thursday November 14, 2019 at The Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, 1 Granary Square, King’s Cross, London N1C 4A.

It will include works by Anthony Gormley, Caroline Broadhead, Cathy de Monchaux, Cathy Lomax, Chila Kumari Burman, Francesco Poiana, John Stezaker, Josie McCoy, Kathy Pendergast, Lottie Bolster, Maggi Hambling, Mario Rossi, Marc Hulson, Mark Francis, Mona Hartoum, Nicole Wassall, Paula Rego, Pia Östlund, Raqib Shaw, Shezad Dawood, and Tess Jaray.

You can see images here: https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/whats-on-at-csm/lethaby-gallery/postgraduate-art-auction/works/2019

The exhibition will be open to the public for a week prior to the auction to view the work in person.  For opening dates and times, please go to the Auction page on the CSM website: https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/whats-on-at-csm/lethaby-gallery/postgraduate-art-auction

If you’d like to attend, please register using this link: https://csm-booking-live.herokuapp.com/guest/show/11/?ticketsselected=1&taggroup[CSM_Dpt][]=Art&dm_i=3JFH,VLBP,1Y7LVJ,379EN,1

[josiemccoyart]

Magpie Anthology Article

There’s an article about my work on The Magpie Anthology written by Suzanne O’Donnell.  It's about working in Valencia and my latest project and includes images of some of my most recent paintings.  You can see the article here:

https://www.magpieonline.co.uk/featured/josie-mccoy-a-painter-in-valencia-amongst-the-natives/?fbclid=IwAR2HyrY4nMEvxY96pI211dce1CC1J_10-XKOja3OC7KQrKSqX1WYFKAFsA8

[josiemccoyart]

The Ghost Tide

THE GHOST TIDE

curated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Thames-Side Studios Gallery, Thames-Side Studios,  Harrington Way, Warspite Road, Woolwich,  SE18 5NR www.thames-sidestudios.co.uk EXHIBITION DATES 20 October – 3 November  GALLERY OPENING HOURS Thurs-Sun 12pm – 5pm OPENING PARTY Friday 19 October 6pm - 8.30pm Gen Doy performance 7.30pm The Ghost Tide - coinciding with the festivals of Hallowe'en, All Souls and the Day of the Dead - takes as its starting point the perspective that ghosts exist as an idea, or as part of a belief system, across cultures, across national borders and throughout recorded history. Most languages contain words to describe the ghost, spirit or immaterial part of a deceased person. Often, these words - like the type of ghost they describe - have traversed borders and been assimilated across cultures. The exhibition, situated next to the Thames Barrier in South-East London, evokes ghosts as a migratory tide, washed up along the shore of the Thames their historical baggage in tow. It also explores the presence of artists in this part of London, as a migratory tide of creative flotsam and jetsam which ebbs and flows as the city gentrifies and develops. Featured works include sculpture, installation, film, sound, performance and wall based works. The exhibition will include installations and outdoor interventions, as well as public events.
The Ghost Tide features works by over 30 UK and international artists.  Artists featured: Andrea G Artz, Chris Boyd, Davies, Monaghan & Klein, Gen Doy, Sarah Doyle, Graham Dunning, Diane Eagles, Andrew Ekins, Charlie Fox, Katie Goodwin, Kio Griffith, Miyuki Kasahara, Calum F Kerr, Rob La Frenais, David Leapman, Liane Lang, Toby MacLennan, Laura Marker, Joanna McCormick, Josie McCoy, Jane Millar, Output Arts, Miroslav Pomichal, Brothers Quay, Anne Robinson, Edwin Rostron, Matt Rowe, Sarah Sparkes, Charlotte Squire, Sara Trillo, Yun Ting Tsai, Kate Walters, Patrick White, Heidi Wigmore, Neale Willis, Mary Yacoob, Neda Zarfsaz. About the Curators: Monika Bobinska is the director of CANAL, which organizes exhibitions and art projects in a variety of settings. She is the founder of the North Devon Artist Residency.  Sarah Sparkes is an artist and curator. She leads the visual arts and creative research project GHost (initiated in 2008), curating an on-going programme of exhibitions, performances and inter-disciplinary seminars interrogating the idea of the ghost. Her work, The GHost Formula, 2016, commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and funded by Arts Council England recently toured to NTMoFA (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts) as part of the exhibition No Such Thing As Gravity, curated by Rob La Frenais. CURATORS' TALK Saturday 20 October 3pm – 4pm DAY OF THE DEAD CLOSING PARTY Saturday 3 November 2pm – 7.30pm Papel Picado Workshop 2pm – 5pm   Make your own Day of the Dead 'cut - outs' with artist Sarah Doyle. Suitable for all ages, materials provided  Performances and Artist Led Walk 2pm – 5pm  Charlie Fox, Calum F Kerr, Joanna Mccormick, in and around the gallery Day Of The Dead Feast  5pm – 6pm   Refreshments served  International Film Screening 6pm  Screening of short films in the gallery: Chris Boyd, Liane Lang, Brothers Quay, Yun Ting Tsai and Neda Zarfsaz For more information, contact us on l 0786 606 3663 | 07900 208 711 | theghosttide@gmail.com www.ghosthostings.co.uk | www.canalprojects.info

Monika Bobinska | Sarah Sparkes

0786 606 3663       07900 208711

 Flyer image: Bad Omen | Matt Rowe | 2011

 The Ghost Tide #theghosttide

Thames-Side Gallery www.thames-sidestudios.co.uk

20 October - 3 November    Gallery open Thur-Sun 12-5pm

PV: Friday 19 October 6-9pm, with performance by Gen Doy at 7.30pm

Curators' talk: Saturday 20 October 3-4pm

Papel Picado papercut workshop: Saturday 3 November 2-5pm (suitable for all ages)

Closing feast: Saturday 3 November 5-6pm

Film screenings & performances: Saturday 3 November 6-7.30pm

 www.ghosthostings.co.uk | www.theghostportal.co.uk | www.canalprojects.info

[josiemccoyart]

Exhibition – Face to Face

Photo: Elvira Meisel-Kemper

I am showing four oil paintings and five watercolours in the exhibition ‘Face to Face’ at Kunstalle Hense in Germany until the 8th September.

Kunsthalle Hense Armlandstraße 20 48712 Gescher

For more information, please see www.hense.art or get in touch with me at josiemccoyart@gmail.com

There’s a YouTube video and two articles about the exhibition here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmLs41PG-3k&feature=player_embedded

http://www.azonline.de/Gescher/3386778-Gescher-Spannende-Blicke-in-viele-Gesichter

http://www.azonline.de/Gescher/3377410-Gescher-Besucher-blicken-in-viele-Gesichter

[josiemccoyart]

New exhibitions and open studios

I’m taking part in two exhibitions and an open studio event in Valencia this month.

Image: Bjork, 40 x 40cm, oil on canvas, 2018

   ‘Russafart 20x20’ Exhibition

Imprevisual Galería, C/ Doctor Sumsi 35, Valencia

The exhibition is on until 2 September and is open Monday to Friday 9am – 1pm and 6 – 9.30pm

‘Here Now’ Exhibition

4P Gallery, Calle Pintor Gisbert 4, Valencia

The exhibition is on until end June.

Russafart Open Studios

Sporting Club Russafa, C/ Sevilla 5, 46006 Valencia

Private view: Friday 1 June from 7pm

Open:  Saturday 2 June, 10am-2pm and 5-9pm

Sunday 3 June, 10am-2pm and 5-8pm with the closing party from 8.30pm.

Image: Studio wall with Bjork, Poly Styrene, Annie Lennox, Kate Bush, Madonna (work in progress) and Siouxsie Sioux, all 40 x 40cm, oil on canvas 2017/18. 

Photos of my studio during the event.

For more information about any of the exhibitions, please get in touch with me at josiemccoyart@gmail.com and there is more information about the Russafart event here: www.russafart.com

[josiemccoyart]

Here Now Group Exhibition

I’m showing five paintings in this group show at 4P Gallery, Calle Pintor Gisbert 4, Russafa, Valencia.  The exhibition is on until June.  

For more information, please email me at josiemccoyart@gmail.com or phone me on 0034 664558561.

[josiemccoyart]

Political Poetical

An exhibition curated by Paco Barragán and Petra Lossen at Petra Lossen Fine Art, Zürich.

Petra Lossen Fine Art is pleased to announce the thought-provoking interdisciplinary international exhibition Political Poetical with works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Santiago Sierra, Erwin Olaf, Chus García-Fraile, Nicola Verlato, Johan Wahlstrom, Johanna Reich, Gregory Herpe and Josie McCoy.

Curated by Spanish curator and arts writer Paco Barragán and Petra Lossen, the exhibiton brings together an imaginative mix of classic and contemporary artists on the theme of the ‘political’ and the ‘poetical’.

In the contingent times of today’s capitalism it becomes a fascinating topic to examine how the political can be poetical and how the poetical is extremely political.  We have entered ‘classic’ artists like Picasso and Dalí into a fresh dialogue with contemporary artists like Santiago Sierra, Erwin Olaf and Josie McCoy, to mention just a few. The exhibition represents an exercise in a-historical or trans-historical curating that helps us to articulate how the political-poetical dialectics have been and still are a mayor topic in contemporary art and society.  

Basically, we could argue that the artistic and its structures are always trying to redefine themselves and looking for new ways to meet the challenges society faces. Maybe today under neo-liberalism it is not about utopia or demanding radical democracy, but about more modest goals: the survival of democracy or the return/recovery of certain benefits of the welfare state.

The exhibition Political Poetical inserts itself within this fascinating artistic discourse and pursues the questions of what is art, what can art do and if it still can represent a place of resistance, critique and opposition.

If for Hannah Arendt the political is inevitably connected to actions that enable the appearance of the ‘unknown’, the art world is a place of ‘conflictual consensus’—as Jacques Ranciére would argue—where the utopian, the irreverent, the radical, and the impossible are possible. “Contrary to the usual assumption”­­—affirms Murray Edelman—“art should be recognized as a major and integral part of the transaction that engenders political behaviour.”

The group of artists in the show tackle the dialectics political-poetical from diferent angles negotiating its limits and its tensions using varied intedisciplinary media including painting, photography, video, sculpture, performance and works on paper.

The exhibition is both concept and display-wise divided into two constellations.

The ‘political wall’ will revolve around Pablo Picasso´s drawings of Guernica—the so-called Post-scripts—that are still a masterpiece today and a clear example of the horror and injustices of war. Both Spanish artists Santiago Sierra and Chus García-Fraile will enter in dialogue with Picasso in a literal and metaphorical manner: while Sierra presents a photo from the famous series of Veterans of the War of Iraq, Afghanistan Facing the Wall denouncing the connection between capitalism and warfare, Chus García-Fraile delves into the origin of fireworks and the idea of the image as artifice, as simulacrum, conveying mesmerizing analogies between real bombings and fireworks. Also on the same wall we will display Johann M. Reich’s video-performance Monument in which she paints a simple German flag into which she ´literally’ disappears, revolving around ideas of patriotism and nationalism. And finally, we will exhibit a fascinating image by Dutch artist Erwin Olaf staged in the Berlin interbellum years with its unmatching oneiric atmosphere. Now that we commemorate 80 years of the bombardment of Guernica, Picasso’s drawings  will provide a fascinating dialogue with the work of Santiago Sierra, Chus García-Fraile, Johanna Reich and Erwin Olaf.

If in the former constellation of works the political is more obvious or manifest, the ‘poetical wall’ brings together works in a sort of ‘assemblage’ by Salvador Dalí, Nicola Verlato, Josie McCoy, Gregory Herpe and Johan Wahlstrom. Here we find the political filtered through modern society and elements like mass media, celebrity and social life in which the representation acquires poetical references.

Salvador Dalí is an extremely political artist, although this part of his career has been conveniently silenced as he didn´t choose the right side of history. One of the inventors of the celebrity cultus, Dalí’s Profile of Time is an open-ended work which can reference from Einstein´s relativity theory to the poetical surrealists dream states in which oneiric landscapes go hand in hand with estranged characters. Both Josie McCoy and Nicola Verlato delve directly into the realm of celebrity status and politics turned into a celebrity contest: while Josie McCoy portrays the couple Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner exploring the potentiality of estrangement between the celebrity and the viewer, Nicola Verlato offers a critical hyper-realist composition of the Oval Room and a in fraganti glimpse of former President Barack Obama. Gregory Herpe offers awkward and poetic black and white photographs of today’s cityscapes populated by celebrity personalities like Mick Jagger —vigilantly watched by French military— and histrionic Donald Trump. Finally, Swedish artist Johan Wahlstrom also walks the path of celebrity, mass media and especially social media by conveying estranged compositions of everyday life of people engaging in social media in the most varied situations tackling imaginatively concepts like “hyperflexibility”, “mobility” and “availability”, which are the key to the neo-liberal mantra. Departing from Salvador Dalí’s Profile of time we have in a metaphorical manner conceived a wall that deals poetically with politics, celebrity and social media.

The exhibition Political Poetical basically allows us to ask ourselves what is the role of art in society and how art can explore new ways and new ideas that can directly or indirectly find their way into our quotidianity. Petra Lossen Fine Art is extremely happy to have brought together such a pool of artists in such a fascinating dialogue.

[josiemccoyart]

Solo exhibition - Glow and Celebrity: The Philosophy of Josie McCoy

My solo show at ATM Gallery, curated by Paco Barragán, is on until 1st November. Here’s the press release and some installation shots of the show during the hang.

Glow and Celebrity: The Philosophy of Josie McCoy

Curator: Paco Barragán

ATM Gallery: Opening Friday, October 13, 2017

ATM gallery is proud to present an exhibition by British artist Josie McCoy, curated by Paco Barragán.

Titled Glow and Celebrity: The Philosophy of Josie McCoy, the exhibition features a dozen oil paintings and a similar number of watercolours made between 2015 and 2017 reflecting Josie McCoy's fascinating relationship with popular culture: film and pop music.

A graduate of the prestigious Central Saint Martin's College in London, Josie McCoy has been selected four times for the well-known portrait painting competition, the BP Portrait Award, which is held annually at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Any lover of painting will immediately recognize that she is a good ‘old-school’ painter with an ability to paint high quality and original portraits, which is rarely found nowadays.

We asked the curator of the exhibition, Paco Barragán, what interests him so much about Josie McCoy’s work: "I have known Josie McCoy’s work since she was selected for the Castellón International Painting Prize in 2006 when I was the artistic director of the competition. Thanks to that event I had the opportunity to see a lot of international painting, and I realised that Josie McCoy is a painter with an exceptional gift."

"The portrait," says Barragán, "is one of the most difficult pictorial genres and capturing the gaze and likeness of someone is a challenge. McCoy belongs to a long line of 'classic painters' because of her painting process, and how she constructs layer after layer of detail is fascinating and unconventional. That is to say, although they are characters that we all know such as ‘Daenerys’ or ‘Arya Stark’ from Game of Thrones or the singer ‘Blondie’, there is always a crucial point that turns the celebrity into what the media theorist Richard Schickel in 1985 defined as 'intimate strangers': that false illusion of intimacy that we share as spectators, and that makes them familiar and strange at the same time. From a conceptual point of view I am very interested in her work because it addresses one of the most relevant issues in today's society: celebrity’s narrative and its relationship with high culture."

Both her oil paintings and watercolours show the close relationship that Josie McCoy has had with Hollywood movies and the British music scene and how they have influenced her formative years as a painter.

Who better than Josie McCoy to illustrate: "I'm very interested in how the viewer connects with the portraits I paint, and in particular how he or she engages with a face that may be familiar, but which is taken out of context."

The curator has conceived a careful exhibition design that, departing from Kandinsky's colour theory, makes use of shapes and colour in order to activate the viewer's gaze and trigger his own memories and references.

Asked about her interest in film and television, McCoy responds: "I am interested in the thin line between reality and fiction. And that is what I look for through the painting process itself: when I use oil paint, I create fine layers with very diluted paint waiting for each layer to dry before painting again. Thus, the surface of the painting acquires a glow that imitates the television screen itself. "

For Josie McCoy, the pictorial process and the artistic concept go harmoniously together, reinforcing each other.

'Glow and celebrity,' that is the 'philosophy of Josie McCoy' that can be seen through the artist’s luminous paintings and watercolours at ATM gallery until November 1, 2017.

[josiemccoyart]

Idiosyncratic Monochromes

My work has recently been included in ‘Idiosyncratic Monochromes’, an issue of PoetsArtist Magazine curated by Lorena Kloosterboer. 

https://www.poetsandartists.com/magazine/2017/5/28/idiosyncratic-monochromes-curated-by-lorena-kloosterboer

[josiemccoyart]

McCoy, Gingles, Picazo: Works on paper

I’ve painted some new watercolours for this exhibition, which opens on Friday.  I’ve focused on musicians who had a positive influence on me in my formative years, including Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux, Adam Ant, Sinead O’Connor and John Lyden among others. 

[josiemccoyart]

Refugiarte Exhibition

I'm taking part in this exhibition at the Centre del Carmen, Valencia. All of the work is donated and any sales go to help refugees through Oxfam Intermon and Cear-pv (the Spanish Refugee Aid Commission). The Private View is from 8pm on 11th May and the show is on until 10th June. 

The Centre del Carmen is an exhibition & cultural centre in a former 13th-century convent.

http://www.consorcimuseus.gva.es/centro-del-carmen/?lang=es

[josiemccoyart]

New Painting

Ava II, 100 x 100cm, oil on canvas

[josiemccoyart]

Group exhibition

I’m showing some work in this show which is on until 8th January.

including my new 30 x 30cm painting of Alicia Vikander

and Cristina’s Hair II, 30 x 30cm

[josiemccoyart]

New painting

I finished this painting this morning. It's Alicia Vikander, 30 x 30cm, oil on canvas.

[josiemccoyart]

New painting wip

I did some more on this one yesterday and today and as long as it dries as I hope it will, I’ll call it finished on Monday.  It’s 30 x 30cm, oil on canvas, and depicts Alicia Vikander.

[josiemccoyart]

Exhibition

Sporting at Standard, Valencia

Private view: Friday 21st October 8 – 11pm 22nd October to 13th November  Curro Canavese | Elena Martí | Fernando Rincón | José Antonio Picazo | Josie McCoy | Lucía Peiró  | Rodrigo Villagrán | Ximo Micó Standard Galeria y Estudios, Calle Luis Oliag 43, 46006 Valencia www.standard-art.org