Venice 2019. Opening night.
Penelope Payne graduated from Newcastle University Fine Art Dept in 1992. She worked in London for Bronze Age Foundry and later as a Spatial and Interior Designer before returning to Newcastle to raise a family. Working in various aspects of the arts, she returned to a full time fine art practice in 2019. She has been involved in Middlesbrough Art Week since 2019 and the curator of the North East Open Call, Middlesbrough Art Week, since 2023.
Paynes artistic practice is rooted in the exploration of female narratives, particularly the overlooked and unrecorded histories of ‘women’s work’. From her studio in Cullercoats,she creates a diverse range of work, including sculpture, site-specific installation and performative action.
In one of her most significant bodies of work Payne reflects on the lives of the Cullercoats fisherwomen, using materials such as salt, tar, and text to create work that examines themes of female labour, empowerment and the quotidian. Her filmed performance, ‘Horizons’ 2022, explores the female condition through the lens of place and narrative. Filmed on Cullercoats Beach it features over 60 women who, at sunrise, obscure the horizon with hand-sewn banners crafted by a female collective. The mutual act of blocking the horizon serving as a powerful metaphor for the societal occlusion of women. This work was notably shown at MIMA as part of the Sonia Boyce show, ‘In The Castle Of My Skin’ (2021). Highlighted by The National Galleries lecture series in conjunction with The Met, New York (2022) and exhibited at The Factory, Iceland, 2024.
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Payne presented new work at Cheeseburn Sculpture Garden, 2024. ‘Side to middle and inside out Shuggie Bain’ considers the precariousness of female domestic labour. Additionally explored in ‘Ideal Home’ shown at the following Solid Ground exhibition. These works both feature glass knives which were first considered during Paynes residency in Iceland (2023) continuing her exploration into the narratives of women’s work, blending historical and contemporary societal context with material experimentation.