Joanne

From January 2024, MA Fine Art students have taken temporary collective ownership of B Gallery. Rather than planning a series of exhibitions in advance, they have decided to programme as they go along. Like a game of consequences, each subsequent project will act as a direct creative-curatorial response to the previous one. The first project, titled 'Joanne', is an exhibition of drawings, etchings and paintings by MA Fine Art student Richard Kitson. The exhibition explores the relationship between artist and subject, in this case the artist's wife Joanne who has been his regular sitter since 2002. Acting as a visual diary as much as a suite of portraits, Joanne aims to evoke wider themes of biography, ageing and domesticity. For Joanne, sitting for Richard is a habitual activity born out of their everyday lives; a record of their relationship.

Richard Kitson is a painter primarily concerned with portraiture and the human figure, whose subjects are most often family members and friends. He is interested in painting without exaggeration or idealisation, and likens viewing one of his portraits to wandering into a space where the person depicted just happens to be. Working from life enables Richard to sustain a dialogue between himself, his sitter, and his painting process over several weeks or months.

'Joanne' is the first in a sequence of exhibitions in B Gallery during 2023-2024 programmed by MA Fine Art students and Course Leader Dr David Steans.

This exhibition is available to view from 10:00am - 4:00pm Monday to Friday by appointment only for external visitors. Please email curatorial@leeds-art.ac.uk to make an appointment. Staff and students are not required to make an appointment.