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Jess Blandford // Tender

Abstract painter and winner of Southwark Park Galleries’ 2024 Annual Open Jess Blandford presents a series of small, intimate works alongside a new site-specific installation.

This is a publicly contributed event and not a council event. If you would like, you can submit your own event and have it appear on our website (subject to review).
Abstract painting featuring bold blue, brown, pink, and beige brushstrokes with dynamic lines and splatters on a divided canvas.
Jess Blandford, Are we out of ketchup?, 2025. © and courtesy the artist

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Wednesday - Sunday
Description

Abstract painter and winner of Southwark Park Galleries’ 2024 Annual Open Jess Blandford presents a series of small, intimate works alongside a new site-specific installation, where unruly paintings spill onto the gallery wall. Using colour, erasure and layered marks, Blandford reflects on the labour of care to explore the complex physical, mental and emotional work involved in family life, drawing upon her own experience of care-giving.

Blandford was selected by Southwark Park Galleries alumni artists Joy Labinjo and Paul Purgas as the winner of our 40th Annual Open in 2024 — London’s longest-running democratic exhibition and a rare opportunity for all artists at any stage of their career to submit work without a selection criteria.

This exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England and Breckman & Company.

 

Artist Bio

Jess Blandford (b. 1973) is a British artist living and working in South East London. Her practice is focused on abstract drawing and painting, having studied painting at Camberwell School of Art and printmaking at the Royal College of Art. Preoccupied with familial roles, flawed structures and problematic expectations, her work is concerned with finding ways to make apparent the invisible, unpaid labour that holds family life together. She is interested in celebrating the small, mundane, messy, complex, repetitive acts that are the foundations of domestic life.

She is a founding member of FOLD Art Collective, whose mission is to generously give support, space and voice to the work of midlife women artists who are often overlooked in contemporary culture. She was selected for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in 2023 and 2024 and has exhibited at Morley Gallery, APT Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Safehouse Peckham.

Tickets

How to get there

By bus
BUSES // 1, 47, 188, 199, 225, 381, P12, C10. All stop at Canada Water station.
By car
DRIVING // Visitors are encouraged to use public transport where possible. If you are wishing to travel by car please enter Southwark Park via the Southwark Park Road entrance with some free parking.

By train
RAIL // South Bermondsey Station
By tube
UNDERGROUND // Canada Water on the Jubilee and London Overground Lines (step free station) or Surrey Quays on the London Overground (This station is not step free). Canada Water station 7 min walk.

Accessibility

Southwark Park Galleries is well connected via 3 different tube/rail lines, with 4 stations at each corner of Southwark Park, and many bus routes. We are 2 stops from London Bridge.

Location
Address

Southwark Park Galleries, Lake Gallery
1 Park Approach, Southwark Park
London
SE16 2UA
United Kingdom

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