Josie Jenkins
Biography
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Josie Jenkins is an artist based in Liverpool, UK. She studied for her BA Hons in Fine Art (Painting) at Norwich School of Art and Design, UK, graduating in 2002 and has since exhibited in the UK and internationally. Josie was born in The East Riding of Yorkshire and worked as an artist in Hull and Nottinghamshire, before settling in Liverpool.
In 2013, Josie Jenkins won the Valeria Sykes Award as part of the New Light Art Prize exhibition, which funded a residency in Xiamen, China, in 2014 with the Chinese European Art Centre. She returned to China a year later to visit again. During this time, she visited the Yangshan Deep Sea Port, Shanghai, the largest container port in the world, as well as the island of Gulangyu, a former international settlement. This experience sparked a shift in her work and since then, she has continued to explore related themes.
Josie has exhibited throughout the UK, including a solo exhibition at Bluecoat, Liverpool, in 2020 titled Assembled Worlds. In 2022, she co-curated and exhibited in Refractive Pool: Contemporary British Painting at the Walker Art Gallery. Other recent projects Josie has been involved with include Shuffle, which produces exhibitions in temporary spaces, mixing great art with lively opening events, promoting artists and selling work, and Liverpool Artists’ Network, a project that connects artists across Merseyside with each other, arts organisations and the public.
Josie also writes about art on her Substack and produces and edits The Blue Landscape, a Substack publication featuring writing about art, free-thinking commentary, news, and reviews from writers and visual artists.
Selected Exhibitions
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Solo Shows
2025 Editions, Liverpool, UK, Figuring the Boundaries.
2020 Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK, Assembled Worlds.
2015 Nothing Gallery, Xiamen, China, A Distorted View.
2015 CEAC, Xiamen, China, Exploding Mountains.
2014 Cork Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK, Pathos and Entropy.
2012 Bridewell Studios and Gallery, Liverpool, UK, England Lost Me.
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Group Shows
2024 Tobacco Warehouse, Liverpool, UK, Shuffle.
2022 Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK, Are You Messin’?
2022 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK, Refractive Pool: Contemporary Painting in Liverpool.
2022 Saul Hay Fine Art, Manchester, UK, Northern Lights: A 10 Year Retrospective.
2021 Dead Clough, Halifax, UK, Showcase.
2020 Oceans Apart, Salford, UK, Enough is Definitely Enough.
2020 SET Space, Lewisham, London, UK, Potholes.
2019 Dean Clough, Halifax, UK, Sites Revisited.
2019 Oceans Apart, Salford, UK, A Little Painting Show.
2019 Plas Bodfa, Anglesey, UK, Sui Generis, The Possibilities of a House.
2018 Bankley Studios and Gallery, Manchester, UK, C'est de la Peinture! New work by 24 painters from the UK and USA.
2018 Saul Hay Fine Art, Manchester, UK, Looking Forward.
2017 Dead Pigeon Gallery Kempston Street, Liverpool, UK, Onsite: The Plasterer.
2017 Warrington Museum and Gallery, UK, A Strange Reality.
2016 Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk, UK, Into the Wilderness.
2015 Djupivogur, Iceland, Rolling Snowball/6.
2014 No Format Gallery, London, UK, Out of the Box.
2014 The Mall Galleries, London, UK, New Lights - Art in the North.
2013 Mercer Gallery, Harrogate, UK, New Lights Art Prize.
Awards
2013 Valeria Sykes Award, New Lights Art Prize.
Residencies
2015 C-Platform, Xiamen, China, C-Platform Exchange.
2014 Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen, China, self directed residency.
2014 Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Allenheads, UK, self directed residency.
Commissions
2014 Sevenstreets and Liverpool International Music Festival, You Are Here.
Publications
Buchanan, T., & Lea, S. Out of the Box: A Celebration of Contemporary Box Art. (London: Eight Books, 2022).
Lyons, B., Jenkins, J., & Farley, P. Refractive Pool: Contemporary Painting in Liverpool. (Liverpool: Refractive Pool, 2021).
Various articles. Hidden Gems – Exploring Liverpool's Independent Art Spaces. (Independently published, Liverpool: 2016).
Chapman, D., ed. Norwich: A Local History. (Norwich: Tempus Publishing, 2002). Essay titled “Four Paintings and a Life Room Past”.