Figuratively Speaking | Work in Progress by the Zsuzsi Roboz Art Scholars 2019-20

Online from 17 September 2020

The Morley Gallery presents an online pop-up exhibition by Jenny Bell and Helen Johannessen, the Zsuzsi Roboz art scholars for 2019-21. The digital exhibition, curated by Steve Wright (Zsuzsi Roboz Scholarship coordinator and personal tutor) and the Gallery team, shows work in progress made at Morley during their time as scholars. It’s an informal display of experiments, new skills, and visual research that offers insights into how these two artists think and create. Helen and Jenny have shared many of their thoughts and experiences with each other, and we invite you to find connections between these two artists as you explore their artwork. The scholars will have a final exhibition in a gallery space, in summer 2021.

Helen Johannessen’s creative background is in ceramics. Following a successful; career in the industry, she studied at the Royal College of Art, shaking up her practice. Fifteen years on, Helen is using the scholarship to challenge and expand the way she makes artwork, testing the possibilities of paint, plaster and photography.

Jenny Bell is a multi-media artist with a background in printmaking. She uses a photocopier to create very fluid and ambiguous images that may evoke both the intimate and the cosmic. During her time as scholar, Jenny has also used film to capture the experience of swimming underwater, another means of exploring the effects of distortion through movement, an idea that is central to her practice.

This Scholarship is offered in memory of the celebrated painter, Zsuzsi Roboz. Funds have been made available to support two contemporary figurative artists of promise working in any medium to study for one year at Morley College London, thanks to the generosity of the ‘Alfred Teddy Smith and Zsuzsi Roboz Art Trust’. 

View the Private View video

Listen to the Podcast interview