Joanna Bridget Gibbs
j.gibbs577[at]btinternet.com
ARTIST’S PROFILE
My books are limited edition, hand-bound, original works often concerned with reinterpreting literary/historical texts – notably by Renaissance authors, John Milton, William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Romantics, Thomas De Quincey, and Charles Dickens – and informed by my interests in Renaissance literature and drama and dissident traditions, particularly mysticism and anarchism, the hermeneutics of alchemical texts, mythology, fairy tale, and the genres of weird, occult and fantasy fiction.
My imagery typically blends digital photography with printmaking, etching, hand engraving and letterpress printing, which I’ve studied at London’s City Lit, Art Academy, Morley College and Harrington & Squires. In addition, I employ textiles, hand and machine embroidery, typewritten text and hand-stamped lettering to emphasis the tactile properties of my books and hand-pulled and digital prints, drawing on my training in costumes, props design and art history at Goldsmiths, Central St Martins College of Art and the University of Sussex. I also make original textiles sculptures and book-related jewellery for private collectors and the boutiques Stag and Bow and Shy on London’s Southbank.
I’m a member of Artists Books Online (Artistsbooksonline.co.uk/ joanna_gibbs.shtm) and regularly exhibit at small press fairs internationally and locally. My books are held in public and private collections, including those of the British Library, University College London, University of Westminster, Manchester Metropolitan University, St Bride Library, the Scottish Poetry Library and the Edward Clark Collection.
Small press and artists’ book fairs
Como Pedro por mi casa, Barcelona, 4-7 July 2018
Designers’ and Makers’ Fair, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, 15 Oct 2017
London Artists’ Book Fair 2017, Granary Square, London 9 July 2017
Small Publishers Fair, Red Lion Square, London, 6-7 Nov 2015
Babe, Arnolfini, Bristol, 11-12 April 2015
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, October 2013
Handmade & Bound, St Bride Library, London, 18 Nov 2012
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, 22 Oct 2012
Handmade & Bound, St Bride Library, London, 20 Nov 2011
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, 22 Oct 2011
Book Project International, XIIIth Book Fair, Marseille, 9-10 Oct 2010
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, 26 Sept, 2010
GIAB, International Artists' Book Fair, Glasgow, 16-17 April 2010
Solihull Artists’ Book Fair, Solihull, 20 March 2010
Small Publishers Fair, Red Lion Square, London, 13-14 Nov 2009
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, 26 Sept 2009
Babe, Arnolfini, Bristol, 4-5 April 2009
Handmade & Bound, St Aloysius Social Club, London, 8 Nov 2008
By Leaves We Live, Scottish Poetry Library, 26 Sept 2008
GIAB, International Artists’ Book Fair, Glasgow, 25-26 April 2008
International Artists’ Book Fair, Marseilles, France, 20-21 Oct 2007
LAB’07, ICA, London, Nov 2007
Group exhibitions
'Bee Works', Bee Urban, Kennington Park Apiary, 4-6 October 2019 - invited artist
Enter into Art’ Miniprint and Mixed Media 2018-2019, touring exhibition,
Bad Breisig, Kobern-Gondorf, Nassau, Cologne, Bonn, 31 July 2018-27 June 2019 – invited artist; honourable special prize for print
Correspondences: homage to Baudelaire, Contemporary Art Gallery Persone and Balsamo Chapel, Lecce, Italy,
8-24 June 2018 – invited artist; visual poetry award
Stroud Museum and Art Gallery, artists’ book cabinet display, 1 Nov-30 Nov 2017
The Art of Dickens, The Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum, Portsmouth,
1 May-1 September 2014 – invited artist
Press and Release, Phoenix Brighton, 27 April-9 June 2013
Beyond Dickens, Southsea Library, Portsmouth, 8 Oct-2 Nov 2012
Unfolding, The Art Shop and Gallery, Abergavenny, 29 May -3 July 2010
The Artful Scriptorium, Climate/Gallery, Long Island, New York, April 2-15, 2010
For the Love of Making Books, Wrexham Arts Centre, 13 Sept-13 Oct, 2007
Publications
Contributing illustrator, Fairytales and Fables from Weimar Days: Collected Utopian Tales, ed. Professor Jack Zipes (Palgrave Macmillan 2018)
Artist’s books featured in Typewriter Art, A Modern Anthology, ed. Barrie Tullett (Laurence King Publishing, 2014) and In Praise of Beautiful Books: Artists’ Books by British Artists and Fine Presses, ed. Caroline Mornement (BCF Books, 2013)
Chapter ‘Marlowe’s Politic Women’ in Constructing Christopher Marlowe, eds., J. Downie and J. Parnell (Cambridge University Press, 2000). (Book awarded the Roma Gill Award for the best critical study written on Marlowe during 1999 and 2000.)
Employment
Chief sub-editor, Dennis Publishing (2003 - )
Freelance sub-editor (2001-2003) for clients including Make, the magazine of women’s art; Apollo, the International Magazine of Arts and Antiques; The Times Magazine; The World of Interiors; Tatler; Harpers & Queen.
Research Fellow, English Department, Goldsmiths (1994 -1997)
During this three-year research award I co-organised a multi-disciplinary conference on Christopher Marlowe to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death and contributed to the related publication, which won the Roma Gill Award for the best critical study of Marlowe during 1999 and 2000; I also co-organised the Goldsmiths postgraduate research seminar and contributed papers on the ballad, witchcraft and women's language in early-modern Scotland and on metaphorical language in Renaissance treatments of the union of crowns and the fashioning of nation at Oxford Brookes University and Middlesex University.
Visiting Tutor, English and Drama Departments, Goldsmiths and Middlesex University (1992 -1999)
Lectures and seminars on first, second and third-year English and Drama courses, including Goldsmiths' first-year course on literary-critical approaches to text, the second and third-year courses on world literature; the Metaphysical poets; Jacobean tragedy and Shakespeare; and Middlesex University's Elizabethan and Jacobean drama module. Co-course coordinator of Goldsmiths' Shakespeare course and exam setter and internal examiner of the Goldsmiths Shakespeare module; examiner and contributor of distance learning materials for the Shakespeare module of the University of London External Degree Programme (English Literature) and internal examiner for Middlesex University's undergraduate course in Elizabethan and Renaissance drama.
Education/Qualifications
1992 - 1999, Goldsmiths, University of London – PhD (1999) The Literature of Anglo-Scots Relations 1560-1612.
1991 - 1992, University of Sussex – MA in Renaissance English Literature with Art History.
1988 - 1991, Goldsmiths College, University of London – BA (Hons) English and Drama - First Class.