Zoe Spowage

Zoe Spowage is a graduate of Falmouth University [2013]. She has been Shortlisted for the British Women Artists prize 2018, awarded the Surface Gallery Prize in 2017, and the Nottingham Castle Open Prize in 2016. She has shown extensively in both solo and group shows. Based at ‘Assembly House’ in Leeds, Spowage is an active member of the art collective ‘PRECIOUS’.

The paintings and constructions of Zoe Spowage combine a sharp-witted graphic sensibility with an engaging theatricality. Unashamedly illustrative, they suggest a narrative that is about to unfold, or depict the aftermath of events that have already happened. Her artworks are accessible and energizing, often joyful and seductive, but once we have been seduced there is also an unnerving undercurrent of oddness; a feeling of being slightly off-kilter, reminiscent of the way the familiar and homely is unsettled in fairy tales. We are drawn into a painted drama, set in stage-like landscapes or domestic rooms in which people, animals and objects interact in a collision of styles and shifting relationships of scale that reveal a disconcerting strangeness lurking within the familiar.

Derek Horton

Zoe Spowage makes paintings that in themselves are complex manoeuvres, their ‘picture perfect’ quality is reminiscent of captured frames of traditional animations on a grand scale in oils. There’s something of the cartoon mated with the old master as the deep renaissance colours collide with comic pops and frenetic lines... There is definitely, something of the performer here, in the brushwork and the resultant buoyant protagonists. Dogs, beefy debonair beauties and books all delightfully bound in flight, or under some sublime pressure to perform. Is there sex in the works? Is she referencing the urban dictionary rather than a Collins definition? There’s sex in everything- No? But here it’s deeper than that- Spowage offers a complicit tenderness to her protagonists, who frolic more than fornicate in a familial way with each other and their viewers.

Hyde Park Art Club, Sarah Roberts

... to classify Spowages artworks as some kind of mild erotica is to miss the point. She's just as interested in womens' hair as she is in footwear and thigh high boots. And anyway these women aren't on show for any mans benefit; they're women-without-men, reveling in their own curves and sensual potential, sometimes enjoying being mothers, and painted and drawn in styles which makes it hard to pin them down to a specific period. Spowage's style variously suggest the artwork of Egon Schiele, vintage travel postcards of the 1930's, Art Nouveau Paris c1900 and Yellow Submarine style cartoon psychedelia of the 1960s. Topically Spowage's female themes arguably took on additional resonance in the week that saw the shaming of Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein for allegations of rape and sexual harassment.

Female poses in excelsis - Nottingham Post - Mark Patterson

I tend to set my paintings in ambiguous/conjured eras. I recently read Tenth of December by George Saunders - a collection of short stories (something that also resonates), and it's unclear from the stories whether we are in the past, present, future or a parallel world. It suggests an untethered way of processing ideas - not bound to honoring history, but let off the lead, free to question. Visiting the Paula Rego exhibition last year was also a source of great encouragement and inspiration. Seeing her paintings in the flesh, allowing you the space to count the sum of their parts (the mark-making, the material quality, the preliminary works), and the glorious sum total, was both magical and de-mistifying at the same time.

Zoe Spowage

Your ‘dame’ takes a prominent role in both your paintings and sculpture; do you use a character and reinvent her?

I’m not totally sure whether they are different characters or not, I can really destroy something by thinking about it too much so I try to avoid that. I do not think that they are full characters, just symbols for a feeling. Usually I draw from imagination and sometimes I notice I have pulled my face and body into a similar form to what I’m drawing.

There is an element of humour or comedy from the catchphrases you often include, that is something that you don’t often get from contemporary art.

I think there is an element of humour; I see them as diary entry drawings, telling myself off, comic book style. Cryptically highlighting my frustrations in the form of drawing with a phrase. I really like how literal text looks within an image. Laughter would be nice; I like comic book delivery, delivery of quick narrative. Raymond Pettibon. Humour hand in hand with enjoyment, I think you can be comic with material as well i.e. fluorescent colours, metallic, lipstick. I am more excited about things like Manga and theatre design than contemporary art at the moment. I think that’s because it’s more about entertainment and less about prestige.

Excerpt from 'Young Artist in Conversation' Interview by Yasmine Rix Published February 2017

Recent exhibitions include a solo show at the Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds (2022), ‘Ruby’ at Charles Abbey Nottingham (2021) ‘Broadsheet’, Assembly House Leeds (2021) and ‘Above the law (Girls in boots)’ Surface Gallery Nottingham (2017). Spowage has been selected for a range of UK based and international residencies including: Charles Abbey - Nottingham 2021; Cyprus School of Art - Cyprus 2019/2020; ComPeung - Chiang Mai Thailand 2016; The Old Burtons - Ilkeston 2013/2014.