Born in Truro (1997), currently working in the East Midlands.
Sculpture, lecture-performances & notes on ‘lumphood’.
‘The lumps give up their lumphood, so to speak, before they can become the statue.’
I encountered this term ‘lumphood’ in 2016 when reading Theodore Scaltsas’ ‘Substances and Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics’. The text provides no insight into this idea, and so I began sifting through various texts which also utilise the word ‘lump’. From Marx’s lumpenproletariat to Virginia Woolf’s short stories, from parenting books to Biblical teachings, from Ontology to Oncology, a lump transcends disciplines and refuses classification.
Lumps are not the same as ‘things’ or ‘objects’, nor can they be assimilated with ‘hunks’ or ‘blobs’. A lump occupies a space somewhere within latency or excess, within the outer limits of our recognition. Often understood as an indiscriminate piece of matter, or a weighty mass, I have come to realise that this term can act as a placeholder; a word that is uttered when the right word cannot be recalled. A lump is neither here nor there; not ‘something’, but not nothing - rather a ‘non-thing’.
A lump tends to be without -
without recognisable form, without present purpose, without immediate function.
My praxis is often attentive to found 'objects' and texts, concurrently. Damaged household items became of interest; the past 'function' and 'purpose' was often lost - the object deactivated, opening up a rift for my interaction to take place. Stripping away appearances, exposing the essentially lumpen substances held within.
Currently I am honing in on how lumps are brought into existence [or acknowledged as existing]. Focusing on the ‘in-between’ space they occupy, and considering who/what produces that space. Questioning the armatures, supports, conditions which carve out and hold ‘lumps’ in actuality, or in this ‘in-between’.
Please visit https://poppyjoneslittleblog.wordpress.com/ to see previous works and blog posts.
Referenced: Theodore Scaltsas, ‘The Substantial Form, The Aristotelian Solution to David Lewis’s Paradox’, Substances and Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, (London: Cornell University Press, 1994) pp.87-89.
Education:
2021-22 MFA, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, Distinction.
2016-20 BA Fine Art (Int), University of Leeds, First Class.
2018-19 Sculpture at HfBK Dresden.
Awards & Residencies:
2022 Bendhem Fine Art Bursary, University of Oxford
2021 Gold Arts Award, Trinity College London.
2021 Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust grant.
2020 AMPlify Artist Residency, Wysing Arts Centre.
2020 Shortlisted for the FUAM Graduate Art Prize.
2020 The Passey Prize in Art.
2020 Shortlisted artist, 'Leeds Summer Group Show'.
2020 Berkofsky Arts Award.
2020 Leeds Excellence in the Arts, Leeds.
2018 The Martin Kirby Prize.
2016 Willoughby Memorial Trust Art Competition
Publications:
June 2022 'it's a conversation', Degree Show publication.
May 2022 Ex Aula Research Journal, St. Edmund Hall, Ox.
May 2022 'Spilt Milk Zine', Oxford.
Mar 2021 'Issue 7: Artists Responding To', zine.
Aug 2020 North Leeds Life Magazine re: the FUAM Prize.
Aug 2020 'Lump: Concept and Object', Haus-a-Rest.
June 2020 'Displaced and Replaced' publication.
May 2020 a-n Degree Show Guide 2020.
May 2019 ‘Penny Thoughts’ Issue 16, Manchester.
April 2019 'nervously- i am inclined', zine distributed in Dresden.
Projects:
Apr-Jan 23 '(from the) elsewhere', Collaboration with Jacob Carter.
June 2021 'lump it': leading & curating an online Explore Page.
Mar 2021 'AMPlify Showcase', Wysing Arts Centre, Online.
Oct 2020 Interviewed by OddBall Space.
Aug 2020 Artist participant, 'Unknown Communication'.
July 2020 'Dementia and the Arts', UCL & Created Out of Mind.
June 2020 'Simmer: Virtual Performances'.
May 2020 Interviewed by Sunny Bank Mills.
May 2020 The Record Covid-19 Project.
April 2020 Online Residency at ORBIT.
May 2018 'Operatunity', Griselda Pollock & Sam Belinfante.
Feb 2018 'Undergraduate Research Experience', Leeds.
Sept 2016- 'Lumphood', self-directed ongoing exploration of 'lump'.
General Experience:
2023 Marketing Assistant, Exact Editions.
2022 Market Research Assistant, Exact Editions.
2022 Web Accessibility & Content Intern, TORCH Oxford.
2022 Marketing, Comms. & Web Design, Swan Youth Project.
2021 Research Assistant, Tuff Luck Gallery.
2018 Warehouse Operative, Penguin Random House.
2015 Summer School Supervisor, Walton Academy.
2015 Volunteer, Community Books.
Exhibitions:
June 2022 'it's a conversation', MFA Degree Show, Oxford.
May 2022 'Spilt Milk', Oxford.
Feb 2022 '[containment//attachment], Oxford.
Dec 2021 'Somewhere, Nowhere', Uni of Gloucestershire.
Aug 2021 'New Grooves Exhibition', Blaze Image, London.
May 2021 'Worldwide: Instagram exhibition', The Stable Gallery.
April 2021 'Open Fragment, online show', Pragmata Collective.
April 2021 'Traces', Air Gallery.
Mar 2021 'The Virus Who Came to Tea', online exhibition.
Feb 2021 Interim Arts, online.
Nov 2020 'November Gallery', The Student Gallery, online.
Nov 2020 'All Shall Pass', Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield.
Oct 2020 Virtual FUAM Graduate Art Prize Exhibition 2020.
Sept 2020 'Obscurum', The Dark Collective, online.
Aug 2020 'So Why Not Do It Again?', Cultivate, London.
July 2020 'Sydenham Arts Artist Trail 2020', Sydenham, London.
July 2020 'Leeds Summer Group Show'.
June 2020 'Simmer' Degree Show 2020, University of Leeds.
Mar 2020 'Ones to Watch', Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley.
Mar 2020 'Untitled', The Brunswick, Leeds.
Dec 2019 'Digest', The Faversham, Leeds.
Oct 2019 'HomeTurf', Chemistry Basement, Leeds.
Aug 2019 'An arm 'nd a leg', Freehold Projects, Leeds.
Jun 2019 'Das Leben ist Kein Ponyhof', Dresden.
Jan 2019 ‘Be Our Guest’, Brülsche Terrasse, Dresden.
April 2018 'AXIS', Left Bank Leeds.
May 2017 'Morphic', Lady Beck Studios, Leeds.
Features:
Sept 2022 COMMON-NOTE(S), Lucy Grubb.
June 2021 Takeover, Tuff Luck Gallery's Instagram.
May 2021 New Grooves Gallery, Instagram.
Mar 2021 'Wednesday Favourite', middlegroundproject.
Feb 2021 Radiant Aberration, Instagram.
Dec 2020 LUU Arts Society, Instagram.
Oct 2020 Groock's Gallery, Instagram.
Oct 2020 DoItYourWay, Instagram.
July 2020 FUAM Graduate Art Prize
July 2020 FUAM Graduate Art Prize Announcement
June 2020 AxisWeb ‘New Arts Highlight’.
June 2020 CoVid Cohort
May 2020 Ones to Watch 2020 feature article
April 2020 @sadgrads2020, Instagram.
April 2020 The Social Distance Art Project
April 2020 @lighthouse.collab, Instagram.
Sept 2019 Freehold Projects