Walthamstow Art Trail

from the series "Traces of Alice, 2010"

I'll be showing work from the Domestic Goddess series, The Long Walk Home and Traces of Alice at this year's Walthamstow Art Trail. It runs from Friday 2nd Sept to Sunday 11th Sept 2011. The private view is on Thursday 1st Sept from 6-8pm (followed by a Blues band) at Currans, 166 Hoe Street, London, E17 4QH. I will be showing a small selection of photographs and screenprints at Ye Olde Rose & Crown, 53 Hoe Street alongside several other artists. I will also be showing a larger selection of work at Currans (address above) as part of another Nomad show.... Join Nomad Gallery on Facebook. Check out details of the art trail at www.e17arttrail.co.uk  My listings are no. 47 and 49, click on the title of exhibition to get more info. Nomad is a wandering art venue whose founding members - Geoff Gunby, Judy Clarkson, Penny Dampier and Andrew Pegram work in a variety of media. Painting, drawing, photography and screenprinting mainly.... We also often invite guest artists to show alongside us.

Islington Arts Factory Summer Salon

I've been selected to show some photographs at this year's Islington Arts Factory Summer Salon. It's like a smaller version of the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. More details available at: www.islingtonartsfactory.org/exhibitions/summer-salon
Private view is Fri 8th July 2011, show runs until 29th July 2011.

Quoting the Islington Arts Factory's website: "In keeping with IAF's founding principles the Summer Salon welcomes a diverse range of contributions and will create a launch pad for up and coming artists from a variety of backgrounds. Islington Arts Factory's Summer Salon 2011 will feature over 140 pieces of new work by local, emerging and established artists. Curation is inspired by the 17th Century French Salons, creating a busy atmosphere to inspire and promote formal and informal discussion around contemporary art themes. This year Summer Salon is part of Islington Exhibits, which throws open the doors of artist's studios and galleries all over Islington."

Images from the 'Traces of Alice' series (2010)

Artist Statement

        Penny Dampier uses the photographic medium to transform and recreate her immediate emotional and physical environment. She attempts to elicit an enigmatic beauty from the mundane and domestic.

        London born and bred, her images are quintessentially English. The birth of her daughter, Alice, in 2008 had a significant impact on her life and is reflected in the subject matter of her work. Using Alice as the focus of many of her images she has been exploring her own childhood reminiscences. She often uses deliberate multiple exposure to give the pictures an unnerving quality and to suggest the blurring of memory.

        Her current work moves on from this to specifically investigate the reconstructed identity of mother and housewife and the limitations and physical boundaries it imposes. She has chosen to illustrate this by photographing and iconizing domestic objects in a sideways look at self-portraiture.

        Thus, in so doing, she has progressed from re-imagining her past experience through the images of her daughter, to a realisation of what she has become. The tangible confines of her present situation have unavoidably brought her practice into clearer focus. This has resulted in a greater emphasis on the politicisation of her domestic existence through her work.

        She has produced a series of large scale colour photographs, measuring 70 x 70 cm. Her preferred method of presentation is to display them in light boxes and exhibit these in a darkened room. Referencing religious iconography and the stained-glass window, the everyday mop, or dustpan and brush are thus elevated from their humble origins.

        She predominantly works with traditional methods of colour photography - using medium format cameras, never cropping the image, and hand-printing. The detail afforded in these analogue images helps to emphasise the importance placed on each object. Moreover, the physical aspect of darkroom printing echoes, to some extent, the daily toil of the housewife.

        She has more recently been using screen-printing to explore new ways of reworking the photographic image.

        Inspired by the work of William Eggleston and Keith Arnatt, she uses colour, composition, and the play of light to imbue her photographs with a painterly quality and transform the ordinary and everyday.

Domestic Goddess (and other ironies)

"Domestic Goddess (self-portrait as a dustpan & brush)" (2011)

My recent work is a quirky, sideways look at self-portraiture where I represent myself through the everyday objects I'm surrounded with in my role as mother and housewife.

"Domestic Goddess (self-portrait as a bottle of Fairy Liquid)"  (2011)

"Domestic Goddess (self-portrait as a potato masher)"  (2011)

My book available to buy online

Check out www.blurb.com and search for Penny Dampier. You'll find my artist book - "Domestic Goddess" which features a selection of my recent photographs and screenprints. It's available to buy for £13.95 (plus p&p). The preview does not show all pictures as yet. After the Walthamstow Art Trail I'll update the preview, but want to keep something as a surprise for the show!

Pie & Mash exhibition

These are some recent images taken on location in the pie and mash shop on Broadway Market. The last two were on show in a group exhibition which showed at the very same establishment - F. Cooke, 9 Broadway Market, London, E3 4PH. Show ran from 31st March until 14th April 2011 and also featured work by Judy Clarkson, David Fried, Geoff Gunby, Manda Helal, Stegasaurus Jones and Andrew Pegram. This is a Nomad Gallery show. Check out Nomad Gallery on Facebook and become a member. Next Nomad show coming soon in Loughton, Essex.

The Long Walk Home

One of the images that was on show in the group exhibition - "Capture" - at the Mile End Art Pavilion, Clinton Road, London, E3 4QY. Show ran from 22nd until 27th March 2011.

Photos of Alice

Photos of Alice