‘Discovery and resurrection: of salvaging, rebuilding, repurposing, redefining until, finally an act of transformation takes place. What begins as a chunk of wall, a littered floor, a sheet of tarpaulin, an old window frame, becomes an object that performs a persuasive act of memory. Her work stands as a representation of time passing and lives lived’
Liz Jobey FT Weekend Magazine
Jo Dennis (b. 1973, UK) is a British artist based in London whose practice spans painting, sculpture and installation. Her work gives physical form to contradictory states—strength and fragility, celebration and exhaustion, disorder and control. Rather than describing specific narratives, Dennis creates conditions for association, using material, colour and form to hold these tensions without resolving them.
Through painting, welding and assembly, Dennis creates works in which surface and structure become inseparable. Working predominantly with found objects, textiles and steel, she allows the physical properties and histories of materials to determine how a work develops. Military surplus tent fabric recurs throughout her practice; its seams, openings and fastenings become part of the composition, allowing painting to move beyond the stretcher and into three-dimensional space. Her works remain deliberately unresolved, existing somewhere between construction and collapse, image and object.
Dennis received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2022), and her BA in Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London (2002). Recent solo exhibitions include Never the Straightest Path, Belenius, Stockholm (2026); A Letter to my Daughter, Carvalho, New York (2025); A Glass of Absinth, JO-HS, Mexico City (2025); and Town Hall Disco, Newchild Gallery, Antwerp (2023–24). Recent group exhibitions include The Long Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2025–26), and David Zwirner PLATFORM, curated by Elisabeth Johs (2025).
Dennis was awarded The Hopper Prize in 2026 and received an Arts Council England grant in 2023–24. She is a co-founder of several artist-led projects in London, including Pigeon Park (2021–22), Peckham 24 Photo Festival (2016–24), AMP Gallery (2015–18) and Asylum Chapel (2010–present), and is a trustee of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution.
Her work was recently included in The Book Of Ladders, 100 Contemporary Art Works edited by Paul Carey Kent and Adeline de Monseignat 2023, and Site Specific by Tall Poppy Press 2023.
An essay by Rebecca Birrell PHD to accompany the exhibition A Letter to My Daughter 2025, Carvalho Gallery, New York, USA can be read here. An essay about her practice by art critic and curator John Slyce can be read here. ‘Margins of Error and Expectation’ an essay written by David Campany as an afterward for Dennis’ book I touched this with my hand, I touched that with my eye 2021 can be read here.
Press:
Curatorial Affairs
A Corner With
Curatorial:
Peckham 24
AMP Gallery
Asylum
Liz Jobey FT Weekend Magazine
Jo Dennis (b. 1973, UK) is a British artist based in London whose practice spans painting, sculpture and installation. Her work gives physical form to contradictory states—strength and fragility, celebration and exhaustion, disorder and control. Rather than describing specific narratives, Dennis creates conditions for association, using material, colour and form to hold these tensions without resolving them.
Through painting, welding and assembly, Dennis creates works in which surface and structure become inseparable. Working predominantly with found objects, textiles and steel, she allows the physical properties and histories of materials to determine how a work develops. Military surplus tent fabric recurs throughout her practice; its seams, openings and fastenings become part of the composition, allowing painting to move beyond the stretcher and into three-dimensional space. Her works remain deliberately unresolved, existing somewhere between construction and collapse, image and object.
Dennis received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2022), and her BA in Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London (2002). Recent solo exhibitions include Never the Straightest Path, Belenius, Stockholm (2026); A Letter to my Daughter, Carvalho, New York (2025); A Glass of Absinth, JO-HS, Mexico City (2025); and Town Hall Disco, Newchild Gallery, Antwerp (2023–24). Recent group exhibitions include The Long Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2025–26), and David Zwirner PLATFORM, curated by Elisabeth Johs (2025).
Dennis was awarded The Hopper Prize in 2026 and received an Arts Council England grant in 2023–24. She is a co-founder of several artist-led projects in London, including Pigeon Park (2021–22), Peckham 24 Photo Festival (2016–24), AMP Gallery (2015–18) and Asylum Chapel (2010–present), and is a trustee of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution.
Her work was recently included in The Book Of Ladders, 100 Contemporary Art Works edited by Paul Carey Kent and Adeline de Monseignat 2023, and Site Specific by Tall Poppy Press 2023.
An essay by Rebecca Birrell PHD to accompany the exhibition A Letter to My Daughter 2025, Carvalho Gallery, New York, USA can be read here. An essay about her practice by art critic and curator John Slyce can be read here. ‘Margins of Error and Expectation’ an essay written by David Campany as an afterward for Dennis’ book I touched this with my hand, I touched that with my eye 2021 can be read here.
Press:
Curatorial Affairs
A Corner With
Curatorial:
Peckham 24
AMP Gallery
Asylum
