Joyce Treasure is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Black Studies from Birmingham City University in 2020. Intersecting politics, care, and satire, she explores how changing climates affect bodies, places, and well-being. Transforming an assemblage of objects and images into allegories of experiences, she cuts between collage, painting, drawings, performance, film and speculative writing. She reimagines identities by investigating ideas of dominance and power, engaging with new technologies, metaphors, myths, and rituals. The purpose is to activate healing, process trauma, and shed light on collective histories by proposing alternative realities rooted in reality as a reparative tool.
Originally trained as a silversmith, she began her career running a company in the applied arts for 12 years before retraining as a screenwriter and filmmaker, where she received a certificate in scriptwriting from Birkbeck University, which led to her winning a writing award where her film was made and funded by BBC and ABI. She founded a community interest company, Treasure Films, that supported young people and adults in filmmaking, working in schools, youth centres and local community centres.
In 2019, she was awarded an arts residency at Grand Union and Bruntwood, where she now sits on the board as a trustee. In addition to being an awardee of the Womxn of Colour Art Award, 2022, from 198 Contemporary Arts Gallery, she is currently the recipient of an Arts Council DYCP fund.
"My practice emerged from a place of self-care and my experience of racism. As I continue my study, I am focusing on how personal experiences can be merged with research and performance to create a trauma-informed praxis, whereby I create fantastical worlds rooted in theory that can exist amidst disorder. I am interested in delving into traditional modes of communication and philosophy from the African continent combined with my British heritage."
Exhibition List //_
Exhibitions
- June 6th – July 7th 2019 | Solo show | Cornerblock Building
- Feb 14th - Feb 28th 2018 | Solo show | Ashburton Hall, Croydon
- Nov – Dec 2014 - Solo show | Calabash of Culture
Group Exhibitions/Screenings/Residencies
- Current - Bring Your Light X Chila Burman | Bow Open
- June - August 2023 - WOCAA: Resonance | 198 Contemporary Arts Gallery
- March 2022 - Traces of the Earth | Lapworth Museum
- Dec 2021 - Jan 2022 | VR SPOT residency | Stryx Gallery
- Oct 2021 - Lapworth Museum pilot residency | Black Arts Forum
- Feb 2019 - Feb 2020 | Grand Union & Bruntwood residency
- July – Sept 2018 - Swop Shop | Tate Liverpool, BCU School of Art, Selfridges
- August 2018 - 50 / 50 group | Crows Nest Gallery
- August 2018 - Open Studios | Birmingham Open
- March – April 2017 - Select artist from public vote |Lovely Gallery
- April – May 2016 - Sacred Art | Group show
- May 2016 - Dulwich Outdoor Gallery | Street Art
- May 2016 - Artists Open House | Dulwich Art Festival
- July 2016 - Group Show | Lovely Gallery
- May 2015 - Dulwich Open House | Dulwich Arts Festival
- Jun – Aug 2015 - Turnpike Art Group | In The Frame
- Aug 2015 - Turnpike Art Group | Monarchy
- April 2014 - Group Show | Monty's Bar
- July 2014 - Group Show| Lovely Gallery
- May 2013 - Dulwich Open House | Dulwich Art Festival
- May 2013 - Dulwich Street Art | Dulwich Art Festival
- June 2013 - Fragments of Isolated Faculty |Fitzrovia Noir
- Aug 2013 - Street Art Festival | Sydenham Art Festival
- Oct 2013 - Lambeth Open | Portico Gallery
- Oct 2012 - I Art. Participatory project | Peckham Shops
- May 2012 - Open House | Dulwich Art Fair
- May 2012 - Home Sweet Home | Kijkruimte
- July-Aug 2012 - Now Is The Time | Deptford X
- July 2012 - Sydenham Arts Trail | Sydenham Arts Festival
- Oct 2012 - Group show | Peckham Space
- Nov 2011 - Group show |Alhambra, Sydenham, SE26
- May 2010 - Touch of Klass film| I Am | Dulwich Art Festival
- Oct 2010 - Touch of Klass film| Space Station Sixty Five
- Nov 2008 - Any Media Documentary | Mediamatic BANK Amsterdam
- Nov 2007 - Korsakow film | ICA, London