About

Jess Blandford (b.1973) is a British artist living and working in South East London.  

My practice is focused on abstract drawing and painting, having studied painting at Camberwell and printmaking at the Royal College. 

I’ve always been fascinated by domestic spaces, but since becoming a mother, I’ve become increasingly preoccupied with familial roles, flawed structures and problematic expectations, informed by my personal experience of care-giving.

My current work is concerned with finding ways to make apparent the invisible unpaid labour that holds family life together. I’m interested in celebrating the small, mundane, messy, complex, repetitive acts that are essential (but often unnoticed) foundations of domestic life.  They are rarely seen as a worthy subject for Fine Art, but are nonetheless valuable. 

I use repetition, hidden layers of colour, varied mark making, fragments and erasures, to celebrate everyday acts of love, and the complex mental, physical and emotional loads that are involved in raising a family and keeping us all connected.

I am a resident artist in the studios at Beckenham Place Mansion. www.beckenhamplace.org.

I’m a founding member of FOLD Art Collective. A group of 12 women artists who have developed their practices later in life following other careers and responsibilities. We meet monthly to critique and encourage one another’s work.

I was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and won the Southwark Park Galleries 2024 Open.

You can follow my work on INSTAGRAM @jessblandford

EDUCATION

2024-25: Turps Correspondence Course

2022-23: Advanced Painting, Morley College

2010-11:  Studying for MA in Printmaking, Royal College of Art

2006-09:  BA Hons Painting (1st Class), Camberwell College of Art UAL

2005-06: Foundation (Distinction), Chelsea College of Art UAL

1992-95: BA Hons English (2:1), Newcastle University

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

RA Summer Exhibition (2025) Royal Academy of Arts, London

The Weight of Things by FOLD Art Collective (March 2025), Morley Gallery, London

Southwark Park Galleries Winter Open (Dec 2024) - Prize Winner

(Un)Visible by FOLD Art Collective (Sept 2024), Safehouse 1, Peckham

RA Summer Exhibition (2024), Royal Academy of Arts, London

Layers of Being (December 2023), Safehouse 2, Peckham, London

In Conversation (November 2023), Jeannie Avent Gallery, London

Women in Art Fair (October 2023), Mall Galleries, London

RA Summer Exhibition (2023), Royal Academy of Arts, London

Beyond the Palette (June 2023), Barry Till Gallery, Morley College

Winter Open (December 2022), Southwark Park Galleries

Made in Peckham (Sept 2022), Gallery AG.1, Bussey Building, Peckham.

Made Part II Drawing Painting & Ceramics (May 2022), Morley Gallery.

Open Studios (twice a year, 2021-23), Beckenham Place Mansion.

Secret Charter (2018), Dulwich Picture Gallery. Exhibition and postcard auction.

Artist Open House, Dulwich Festival (May 2012, 2013, 2018, 2025).

RCA Interim Show (May 2012), Royal College of Art, Printmaking

I Took the Lift to the Sixth Floor (April 2012), Lake Gallery Southwark Park. RCA Printmaking students group show.

Paralexis (Nov 2010), Garden Market Pop-Up Gallery, Bermondsey. 

Q-Art Presents… (Sept 2010), APT Gallery, Deptford.  Group exhibition of works from artists  who participated in the Q-Art programme of talks.

UAL Degree Show (June 2009), Camberwell College of Art. Painting.

Camberwell Fine Art Interim Show (June 2008), Unit 13 Warehouse, Peckham

public works

Fluorescent Yellow Room (March 2010), Market Estate Project, London.  One of 30 installations created at the Market Estate before demolition.  Co-created with Joe Morris.

Bunting (July 2010), Liverpool Road Estate, London.  Community Engagement textile project as part of the estate’s centenary celebrations.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Tender (18 June - 18 Oct 2025), Salter Space, Southwark Park Galleries

Artist Open House, Dulwich Festival (annually from 2019-2025).

Lineation (1 Dec-31 Jan 2020) Crypt of St Mary-le-Bow church

(Un)Tethered (Feb 2019), Copper Beech at JAGs Dulwich.

publicATIONs

Procreate Project Archive (Dec 2015), Photozine and installation at Goldsmith’s Woman’s Art Library.

Fluorescent Yellow Room (March 2010), featured in The Guardian, The Independent, and Dazed & Confused online.