BIOGRAPHY
Ruth Calland is a painter, performer, curator and Jungian analyst. She has a specialist interest both clinically and creatively in the dissociability of the psyche, and the potential for healing contained within its complementary trait, the associative tendency. Her live art has explored psychic connectivity between people both living and ancestral, telepathic connection with cultural artefacts, and related to sea creatures and the sea as symbolic conduits for the collective unconscious.
Ruth is a member of Contemporary British Painting and in 2021 curated Darkness at Noon for CBP. This group exhibition at APT Gallery, London, used the alchemical concept of nigredo, the dark night of the soul, as a lens through which to reflect on the pandemic. She received a grant from the London Borough of Culture awards for another curated project in 2019, Archipelago, which took 9 artists to work onsite from the nine islands of the Walthamstow Wetlands. In 1922 she was selected to be the first artist in residence for Pasture Project Space, Sudbury.
Ruth has exhibited nationally and internationally as a painter, has been included in the New Contemporaries at the ICA, shown recently at Transition Gallery, Oceans Apart and Pineapple Black, and was included in the Contemporary British Painting show Made In Britain, 80 Painters of the 21st Century, at Yantai Museum and touring to Nanjing and Tianjin in China in 2017, and Gdansk, Poland in 2019. She has been a prize-winner at Southwark Gallery Open, a Rome Scholar runner up, Boise Travelling Scholarship winner, and included twice in the Marmite Prize for Painting.
In 2019 she was awarded the international Fordham Prize for her paper about working with awareness of racialised identities. Her new clinical paper ‘Facilitating the emergence of hidden dissociative identity disorder: finding the lost maiden Medusa’ was recently published in the February 2022 issue of the Journal of Analytical Psychology.
CURRICULUM VITAE
1985 BA (Hons) in Fine Art, Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry
1988 MA in Fine Art, Chelsea School of Art
2004 MSc in the Psychodynamics of Human Development, British Association of Psychotherapists and Birkbeck College
2018 Clinical qualification in Jungian Analytic Psychotherapy, British Psychotherapy Foundation, London
SOLO SHOWS and CURATED PROJECTS
2022 Residency presentation of work and discussion: Pasture Project Space, Sudbury, UK
2021 Darkness at Noon: Nigredo of a Pandemic, APT Gallery, London (curator)
Darkness at Noon panel event for Contemporary British Painting,(curator and panellist), online
2019 Archipelago: Islands of the Wetlands (curator), Walthamstow Wetlands, London
2014 Not Yet Dead Nearly (curator), King’s Lynn Arts Centre
2014 No You, No Wonder It's Dark, The Warrant Officer, London
2013 Social Drawing Machine, Dance Camp East, Norfolk
2012 Hermaphrodite Wedding, B & B Project Space, Folkestone
2012 Hermaphrodite Wedding, English Heretic AGM, Masonic Lodge, Bath
2011 Corrupted Vessels, The Yard theatre bar, London
2011 Carnival of Souls, B & B Gallery, part of Vernacular Folk, Folkestone Triennial Fringe Program
Carnival of Souls, Penny Fielding Interiors, E17 Art Trail, London
2010 Astral Gunslinger, E17 Art Trail, London
2009 Just a Little Dance To Help Me See Into Your Soul, L-13 Gallery, London
2008 Countess Euphoria’s Telepathic Dating Agency, E17 Arts Trail
2007 ‘Dame Batlove’s Blind Fortune Telling, with Psychic Sauce‘, ‘O Dreamland’, Greatstone, curated by the Transition Gallery
Yes Yes Y’all, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery; curated by Adelaide Bannerman
2006 Professor Timecreep Demonstrates The Love of a Television for its Memories, Three Colts, London
Professor Timecreep’s Academy of Re-Wiring, Vestry House Museum, London
2005 Esme, Transmuter of Dreams, performance drawings, The Foundry, London
Countess Euphoria’s Telepathic Tête-à-têtes, Lloyds Park Theatre, London as part of News From Nowhere: Visions of Utopia
Hepsibah’s Spirit Parlour, Vestry House Museum, London
Radmilla Click, Time-Travelling Secret Agent, The Foundry, London
Live performance of ‘Radmilla Click’ on Radio Resonance fm
Esme, Transmuter of Dreams, The Artists Fleamarket, Temporary Contemporary
The Social Drawing Machine, Transition, London
1997 Mothers’ Suite, Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery
1996 Mothers’ Suite, Atlantis Gallery, London
GROUP EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS
2023 Artworks Open 2023, Barbican Arts Group Trust, selected by Jasleen Kaur and Rudy Loewe
2023 Conference presenter; Alchemy: Exploring Metaphorical Transformations and Arts-Based Research, (London Arts Based Research Centre), at Oxford University.
2023 It’s Coming from Inside, (part of Windows and Thresholds), at Bell House, part of Dulwich Festival, curated by Sarah Sparkes and Jane Millar
2023 The Flesh and the Answer, curated by Jack Trodd, auction for the Hep C Trust
2023 ‘X’, Newcastle Contemporary, Newcastle
2022 Paint Edgy: Contemporary British Painting & Guests, The Ropewalk Gallery, Barton on Humber
2022 Stand Close and Breathe Me In, curated by Enzo Marra, Elysium, Swansea
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium, Swansea
2022 On Paper, curated by Matthew Macaulay, PAPER, Manchester
2022 Frequencies (for Healing), curated by Hayley Lock, at the Confer/Karnac Art Space, London.
2022 Speaker, panel event at Frequencies (for Healing): Exploring an ecological view of the psyche. A conversation between Dr Joe Cambray, Ruth Calland & Serena Korda.
2022 Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight
2021 Stand Close and Breathe Me In, curated by Enzo Marra, Oceans Apart, Salford
Stand Close and Breathe Me In, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2020 Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
Picture Palace, Transition Gallery
2019 Afterparty, Rose and Crown, Art Night London
Artislands film shown at the E17 International Art Festival
Blind Sale, LUVA Gallery, London
The Art Trail in a Nutshell, Window Gallery, London
Made In Britain, 82 Painters of the 21st Century, National Museum, Gdansk
2018 Rituals and Rites, Artcore, Derby
Coventry Drawing Prize, Classroom Gallery, Coventry
Osman’s Xmas Bazaar! Studio 1.1, London (selected by public vote).
New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
Coventry University Drawing Prize, The Telegraph Building, Coventry
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain: 80 British Painters of the 21st Century, Yantai Museum and touring to Nanjing and Tianjin
Anything Goes, Contemporary British Painting, curated by Anna McNay, Art Bermondsey Project Space, London
In Dreams, Menier Gallery, London
2016 Coventry University Drawing Prize
Contemporary British Painters Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2015 Members Show (Red and Black), Studio 1.1, London
Coventry University Drawing Prize: Lewis Gallery, Rugby, and touring to Hinckley College
Contemporary British Painting, Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2014 This Years Model 2014, Studio 1.1, London
Art/Converters! Studio 1.1, London
The Coventry University Elliotts Drawing Prize, The Lewis Gallery, Rugby School and touring to the Lanchester Gallery, Coventry
2013 Coventry University Drawing Prize
British Psychotherapy Foundation Summer Show
Roll Over Play Dead, Stour Space, London. Curated by Martin Brown
Summer Show, Penny Fielding, London
2012 Good Times Roll, High Roller Society, London
‘Loom’ (film), Penny Fielding Interiors, London
Walthamstow International Film Festival, London
400 Women, Sugar City, Halfweg, The Netherlands
Coventry University Drawing Prize 2012, Lewis Gallery, Rugby
2011 Republic, Red Room Gallery, London. Curated by David Sullivan
400 Women, Canongate Venture, Edinburgh Festival
Coventry University and Seawhite Drawing Prize 2011, Lewis Gallery, Rugby
The Moment of Privacy Has Passed, Usher Gallery, Lincoln
2010 400 Women, curated by Tamsyn Challenger, Shoreditch Town Hall
Hackney Wicked Arts Festival, London
Gallery Open (prize-winner), Southwark Café Gallery
Artworks Open, Artworks Project Space (curated by Graham Crowley and Timothy Hyman)
Stop, Press (print show), The High Roller Society, London
Small is Beautiful, Flowers East, London
2009 Idle Gossip, curated by Stephanie Moran, Flat Gallery, London
WITH OR WITHOUT GOD; Ecstatic Wonderment and Physical Experience in Painting - and beyond, curated by Stephanie Moran, L-13, London
Artworks Open, Artworks Project Space, London
Drawings with Dolphins, curated by Marcus Cope and Stephanie Moran, Crimes Town, London
Hackney Wicked Arts Festival, London
2008 The Marmite Prize for Painting, Studio 1.1, London
Small is Beautiful, Flowers East, London
Yes Yes Y’All, curated by Adelaide Bannerman, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery
2007 The Great Exhibition Room, Arlington Gallery, London
The Smoking Suffragettes, Rational Rec (with Lucy Panesar)
2006 The Marmite Prize, The Residence, London
Through the Looking Glass, Three Colts, London
2005 Flash In The Pan, House Gallery London
Soul Mining, with Sharon Gal & Esther Planas, Transition, London
The Disturbing Eye, Trade, London
2004 We Can Work It Out, Three Colts Gallery, London
Tin Angel, Coventry
The Disturbing Eye, Pink Stallion Gallery, Manchester
2003 Chateau de Sacy, Sacy-le-Petit, France
Coventry Open, Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry
Secret, Royal College of Art, London
Small is Beautiful, Flowers East, London
2002 Drawings for All, selected by Maggie Hambling, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury
2001 Changing Room Gallery, London
Shifting Ground, Spitz Gallery, London
1999 Love, Religion, Explosives’, St. Margaret’s Church, Norwich
1998 Vital Art, Atlantis Gallery, London
Coningsby Gallery, London
Undercurrents, (with Capsa artists group), Woodlands Gallery, London
1997 Guest Artist, Bedford Artists Annual Group Show, Bedford Gallery
1996 Unquiet Voices, with the Capsa group, Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery
Body Politic, Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery. Curated by Marguerite Nugent, touring to Derby Museum & Art Gallery
Taboo; Sense and Sensibility, New End Gallery, London
Provocative Prints, New End Gallery, London
1992 Lamont Gallery, London
1989 Paton Gallery, London
1987 Three Figurative Painters, Paton Gallery, London
1986 New Contemporaries, ICA, London & Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
Expo ‘86, National Garden Festival, Stoke-on-Trent
AWARDS
2022 Residency, Pasture Project Space, Sudbury UK
2020 Michael Fordham Prize for best paper of 2019, International Journal of Analytical Psychology, for ‘Race, Power and Intimacy in the Intersubjective Field’.
2019 Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture grant (curator, Archipelago)
2010 Prizewinner, Southwark Cafe Gallery Open
2007 Henry Moore Foundation (artist, Hastings Museum, Yes Yes Y’All)
2007 Arts Council Grant (artist, Transition Gallery: O Dreamland)
2006 Waltham Forest Arts Council Grant
1998 Art 4 All Grant (curator, Undercurrents)
1988 GLOSCAT Staff Research Grant
1987 Boise Travelling Scholarship
1987 Reserve, Rome Scholarship
1987 Fellowship in Painting, Gloscestershire College of Art & Technology, Cheltenham
COLLECTIONS
Priseman Seabrook Collection
Slade School of Art
Martin McGinn
Leicestershire Collection
British Gas plc
Coventry University
Kettner Collection
SELECTED MEDIA and PUBLICATIONS
Interviewed by Susie Hamilton, commissioned by Robert Priseman, to accompany the relaunch of the Priseman Seabrook Collection. 2023: https://priseman-seabrook.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Ruth-Calland.pdf
Facilitating the emergence of hidden dissociative identity disorder: finding the lost maiden Medusa, Calland R., Journal of Analytical Psychology, Volume 67, Issue1, February 2022, pp 73-87: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-5922.12750
Darkness at Noon catalogue, for show at APT Gallery London, curated by Ruth Calland for Contemporary British Painting. Published November 2021: https://www.contemporarybritishpainting.com/darkness-at-noon-alchemical-nigredo-of-a-pandemic/
Race, power and intimacy in the intersubjective field, Calland, R., Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2019, volume 64, no. 3, pp 367-385: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-5922.12503
Heron Imperatives, Damselfly Affordances, by Stephanie Moran, to accompany Archipelago: Islands of the Wetlands. https://marmaladeundertaking.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/heron-imperatives-damselfly-affordances/
Link to Artislands, a film about Archipelago:Islands of the Wetlands: https://youtu.be/xNOjxv5SSVM
Podcast interview with four artists from Archipelago, Forest Radio:
http://forestradio.co.uk/programmes_X.html (podcast is in grey below youtube film)
Coverage of Archipelago:
https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2019/05/31/how-to-prepare-for-an-art-trail/
Contemporary Masters From Britain: 80 British Painters of the 21st Century, Priseman, R. Createspace, 2017
The Kaleidoscoping Self: Comings and Goings in Our Internal World, Calland, R, 2016. Paper delivered at symposium ‘The Cycle of Life in Art , Literature and Science, Coventry University, 2016
Coverage of No You, No Wonder It’s Dark: http://e17arttrail.blogspot.com/2014/06/shell-shock-and-psychiatry-ruth-calland.html
Vernacular Folk, Folkestone Fringe Program catalogue, 2012
Coventry University Drawing Prize 2012, catalogue
Coverage of photographic work from Hermaphradite Wedding:
http://englishheretic.blogspot.com/2012/10/agm-2012-minutes-miracle-of-sun-and-moon.html
Coventry University and Seawhite Drawing Prize 2011, catalogue
Marmite Painting Prize Catalogue 2011 (longlisted)
The Review Show, BBC2, 19/11/2010, 400 Women exhibition reviewed
‘An Experiment to Test Belief in Art’, Stephanie Moran 2009, L-13 gallery website:
http://www.l-13.org/acatalog/STEPHANIE_MORAN.html
Drawing with Dolphins, catalogue, Crimes Town 2009
Russell Herron’s 500 artists (2009): www.russellherron.com
The Public Catalogue Foundation, Warwickshire volume, 2008
The Marmite Prize catalogue 2008
Walthamstow Guardian, Thurs June 19 2008, ‘Telepathic Love: Countess plans some euphoric art’
Arty, issue 24: ‘Entertainment’, June 2008, commissioned drawing, p.22
Kentish Express, Thurs Aug 30th 2007, ‘The Glories of the Seaside’
Yes Yes Y’all catalogue, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery 2007
Russell Herron’s blog, ‘Timecreep in Walthamstow’, 20th May 06
http://russellherron.blogspot.com/2006/05/timecreep-in-walthamstow.html
The Clear Spot, Radio Resonance fm, 16.5.06
Late Breakfast Show, guest and live performance, Radio Resonance fm, 1.7.05
Arty, issue 18, May 2005, Critical Friend insert, p.15, Calland, R, ‘James Jessop at Rockwell’
Arty, issue 18, May 2005, Critical Friend insert, p. 12, author Billy Rocker, review of ‘Soul Mining’
Discover Hackney March & April 2005, ‘Visual Arts: Soul Mining’
Green Lanes Express 3 March 2005, p. 6 ‘Soul Mining’
Dazed and Confused vol 2 issue 23, March 2005, p.201, Nick Hackworth,
Previews: ‘Soul Mining: Ruth Calland, Sharon Gal, Esther Planas’
Arty, issue 17: ‘Eastend’, Nov 2004, Ruth Calland ‘Tree Stories’
Arty, issue 14: ‘Girls’, Feb 2004 p.30-31 Cathy Lomax, ‘Ruth Calland’ (interview)
Arty, issue 14: ‘Girls’, Feb 2004 p.32-35 ‘Ruth Calland’ 4 commissioned drawings
TEACHING
2021 Society of Analytical Psychology, ‘Working with Race in the Consulting Room’.
2020 Society of Analytical Psychology, ‘Working with Race', with Ruth Williams
2018-20 British Psychotherapy Foundation, Psychotherapy Today course, discussion group facilitator
2019 Camden Arts Centre, 8 week course: Drawing and Painting from the Unconscious
Weston Park Art Club, children’s workshop on Dream Worlds
2011-18 Coventry University Fine Art BA (hons) course
2010 Chelsea College of Art
2009-10 Guildford College
2000 Morley College, London
1992-94 Bedford College of Higher Education (lecturer in drawing)
1989-94 Wimbledon School of Art
1988-89 South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, Cardiff
1987-88 Teaching Fellowship in Painting, Gloscestershire College of Art & Design