Profile
Delpha Hudson
2006
Art making is a means of reconnecting the alternative values of past cultures to the present, and addressing issues of resistance, sustainability, and economies of care.
I use painting as a way of thinking through complex systems with multiple and entangled narratives. My tapestry-like ‘history’ paintings use a vernacular of interpretable figures, colours, symbols and patterns to tell stories about women’s lives. Assimilating mythologies from the past and realising them in a language of the present explores empathy and what we value now.
Idealised and fluid female archetypes satirise hierarchies in which women have so often been absent. They are surrounded by surreal landscapes and domestic patterns that heave with carnivalesque hybrid figures, patterns and symbols that create new fictions and polyphonic stories that create relatable and transformative experience.
Painting installations combine painting with found objects, including local granite egg stones and domestic furniture. Performance and film works use reflexive processes of embodiment in local landscapes as a vehicle to empower and connect. Visual storytelling creates equality, visibility and value for women’s bodily experiences of mothering and caring for the natural world.
MA Visual Performance, Dartington College of Arts (2003)
BA Hons Fine Art, Solihull, Coventry University (2001)
Media Studies (City & Guilds 770), Solihull College (1994)
PGCE, Institute of Education, London University (1986)
BA Hons History, Westfield College, London University (1985)
2024
The sixth sense of understanding, interactive painting installation at Out with the old, in with the new, STUDIO KIND, Devon
2023
Small works on paper, Anna Lovely Gallery, London
Babble Tower – the life raft of language, painting, Penwith Gallery, Associate Member Group Show
Leading CAMP study group, online research into Landscape & performance with workshop at Krowji, Redruth as part of Flamm & CAMP on tour
Skirting the issues, performance at SOAK live art, the Leadworks, Plymouth
Under/Over G12 Gallery, Redruth FLAMM group show curated by Liam Jolly
Hope Chest, sculpture installation, NSA Showcase, Tremenheere Gallery
Between Sky and Earth, exhibition about connectivity, community and ecology, Periscope, Chapels of Rest & SVA Stroud.
Ironing the sky, performance collaboration with Helen Sargeant at the Men-an-Tol. Performance film (2024)
Associate Member Group Show, Penwith Gallery. St Ives
Engage NSA show at Tremenheere Gallery, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens
2022
Group show The Map is not the Territory at Tremenheere Gallery & Sculpture Gardens
Porthmeor Studios Residency in Studio 9. Roses and other phantoms 6m long history painting installation
Synesthesia a collaborative programme by Plymouth Arts, & Dateagle promoting art and writing
Group show Memory at Tremenheere Gallery & Sculpture Gardens
Paintings selected for online shows IMPART & others.
2021
Model Children and other People selected by curator Lisa Wright for Past, Present & Future exhibition Tremenheere Gallery, Cornwall
Paintings selected for online shows Maternochronics & others.
Works on paper shown at Distanced Domestic by co.curation, London & Extraordinary Postcards, Newlyn & Exchange Art Gallery
Publication of Theatre of the Self a performance project book with mental health diaries. Supported by Arts Council & Cultivator
Online interviews with Helen Sargent on Tea with MAM, Carianne Vivianette On resilience and with Ryya Bread’s Creative Core
Selected for funded mentoring with Ceri Hand
Film: Like a ship righting itself shown at Exeter Phoenix and Swept under the rug on show at Tremenheere Gallery
2020 Encased in a new Silence, painting in Edge of Dark, Tremenheere Gallery & Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall
2020 paintings selected for Mother Art Prize and Confinement Chronicle
2018 Domestopia paintinsg at Clifton Fine Art, Bristol
2018 New painting, desperateartwives, Platform 1 Gallery, London
2017 Bear-heamian Rhapsody, performance Haphazard, Hab arts, Manchester
2017 Double Burden, performance, Leyden Gallery, London
2017 Sister Series, Acorn Theatre Gallery & Embodied, Redwing Gallery, Penzance
2017 Marginalia NSA group show Borders at Tremeheere Sculpture Gardens Gallery
2015 Life Sentences, performance video, CAZ square Eyes, Dublin. Original performance work 2003
2014 Liquid Selves painting show Hesletine Gallery, Truro
2013 RED HERRING! performance collaboration Suspended Sentences, Newlyn
2013 Saw Sings (Sourcings), sound art performance with Nigel Bispham at CAZ RESOUND sound art festival, the Acorn Theatre
2013 Liquid Selves, bitumen painting solo exhibition at Helston Museum Gallery
2013 Through, drawings at Drawing the Line, at Anima-Mundi Gallery, St Ives
2012 Lovers’ Letters, ceramic installation SITE-NON-SITE, at Kestle Barton Gallery
2012 Liquid Selves, bitumen drawings at Marburae Gallery, Off the Shelf, Saltburn, the Art Lounge, Derby, Double Lives, Nottingham, Tactile Bosch, Cardiff, Redearth gallery, Devon, and St Ives School of Art
2010 Domestic Mottoes, bitumen drawings HOME, Chapel Gallery, Omskirk
2010 Possessed Possessions, collaborative assemblage works and performance Newlyn Exchange gallery
2009 Object Readings, performance Insite, Cornwall Autonomous Zone, Penzance
2009 Objets-Textes, assemblage installation, RWA Bristol
2008 Vintage Cornfields at Drawing the line, Hilton Young Gallery
2008 Walking a tortoise (femme flaneur), video with Rebecca Weeks, Truro cathedral and the Vitreous Gallery, Truro, shown with painting Illuminating Hours – Folio (i) Green
2008 Handbag Readings, performance at Fete Encounter live art at TRUCK festival, Oxford
2005 Pleasure in Slowness, site-specific performance with Helen Battelley at Mailbox Intervention Festival, B’ham.
2005 Comfort Zones, digital photographs & video, Wolverhampton University Residency
2005 On The margin, performance video (7 minutes) shown at Tulca, Ireland, Body Parts Festival (SSA), Edinburgh, Performance in Nature, Serbia, The Phoenix, Exeter
2004 Something’s Fishy, performance, Surface Gallery, Nottingham
2004 Dos Palabras, performance and video for Stringing a Sentence Together, at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill, London.
2004 Tealady, performance at SEEN festival, Leicester
2003 Inte(xt)change, street performance at Exeter HEM festival.
2002 Singing Theory, performance at the Custard Factory, B’ham, We Are Relentless, AAS,
2002 To the Lighthouse (and Back), video shown at Newlyn Art Gallery, and at Wild Dog, London,
2001 Double-Void, performance, video and installation at Newlyn Art Gallery
2000 A Walk with Jane Austen, video performance installation, Solihull Library Gallery
Presentations
2019 INdialogue presentation at Mansions of the Future, Lincoln
2007 Women’s Work organiser and chair of BAIT seminar Salt Gallery, Hayle with Fran Cottell
2005 Lecture on site-specificity for BAIT, ALIAS funded series of seminars
2003 A Body of Work, performance lecture, Coventry University
2004 Panel leader for discussion at Site/Sight Seminar, Exeter University
Curation
1999- 2008 Co-director of Art Surgery with Andy Whall, artist-led curation of live art and site specific performance projects. Real Art (and a Sense of Place)1999, Arts Council funded Live Art Project programme Tract, (2007), Live Platform (2003), Videoteque (2002)
2006 Salon de Textes, text and performance in a domestic setting, Chapel Street, Penzance, supported by CAZ & Arts Council England
2020 paintings selected for Mother Art Prize and Confinement Chronicle
2020 Theatre of the Self, performance and mental health diaries
2013 Objets-Textes, self-published book on the process and theory of assemblage works
2012 Lover’s Letters, self-published book on ceramic text installation at Kestle Barton
2011 Liquid Selves: The Fragmentary and Multiple Nature of Self , self-published book about the self and bitumen works
2010 Article on artist Sam Hall in Ceramics: Art & Perception, Issue 81, p.79
2008 Revolver, ISBN 987-0-9505680-5-8
2007 Art Cornwall Now, Tate St Ives, ISBN 978-1-85437-751-7
2001 Article on performance art, The Guardian
2016 Place Settings, collaborative sound performance Ca’Zanardi, Venice
2011 Vox Populi video work, Electronic Village Galleries, Penryn, Zennor, Liskeard
2007 Miss-Readings, site-specific performance commission for Tate St Ives ‘Cornwall Art Now’ show
2006 1,000 Kisses, site-specific performance at The Window Gallery, Birmingham
2004 Dead Women Walking, performance at Dartington Hall. Part of Art, what is it good for? curated by Tracey Warr
2002 M/Utter, performance at Crossing Time Festival, Devon
2002 Man Created the Word, performance at VAIN’s Live Art Platform, Oxford
2001 Written in Honey, site-specific installation and performance at Helmsley Castle, Yorkshire, English Heritage Residency
2019 Small Promethean Acts, installation and sculpture, HOME residency show at Artcore Gallery, Derby
