BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised in industrial South Wales, June Nelson is a contemporary artist living in Lewes, East Sussex, whose work focuses on drawing and painting, often shaped by personal narrative, social observation. and history and mythology. She is particularly interested in female agency and bearing witness to silenced lives. After studying English at the University of Reading, she had a career in academic and educational publishing. Alongside this, she developed her artistic voice through classes at Glasgow School of Art and later the 369 Gallery and studio complex in Edinburgh. A move to the South of England , with a young family, led to a more formal training in Fine Art (Painting) at the University of Brighton. She is also an alumna of the Turps Offsite mentoring programme for painters.

June is a studio member of Phoenix Artspace in Brighton and also works at Towner Eastbourne, engaging with the wider arts community. Her installation Cabinet of Imagined Mirrors was shown at the Liverpool Biennial Independents 2006; she has twice been shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize with her smoke drawings; and hasshown in ING discerning Eye. In 2025, she presented a solo show at Phoenix Artspace, Brighton, from which two works were selected for the exhibition 100/50 (Who’s counting?) at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London. She was recently long-listed for the Jackson’s Art Prize.

STATEMENT

My work moves between recognisable figures and objects and more unstable, abstract passages. I work in series, allowing images, materials and recurring motifs to change through repetition. Female figures in diving helmets, ruffs or boxing gloves give way to paintings of vessels and ladders. Forms emerge, dissolve and are remade through colour, layering, pouring and gesture.

Historical and mythological references often provide a starting point, particularly the overlooked stories of women. Drawing on observation, memory and personal and historical archives, I create images that suggest narratives without telling them outright; places where history meets myth, and humour sits alongside seriousness. Across painting, drawing, installation and moving image, I have worked with materials including oil paint, smoke, graphite powder, beeswax and plaster. I am interested in what these materials can do and in the moment when an image or presence begins to emerge from them.

My recent paintings centre on states of becoming and the tension between containment and release. In my latest series, Ladders and Libations, the motifs provide an underlying structure, but the paint increasingly determines what the image becomes. Forms are repeated, obscured, bent or dissolved as the paintings hover between object, body, architecture and landscape.

CV

June Nelson is a painter based in East Sussex. Following an earlier career in academic and educational publishing , alongside an art practice, she has returned to painting with an increasingly sustained focus in recent years. Her current work draws on historical and mythological sources, using an intuitive, materially led approach to explore transformation, containment and release. Recent developments include the Turps Offsite Programme (2024-26), a solo exhibition at Phoenix Artspace, Brighton, and being interviewed by Bob Chaundy on the Considering Art podcast.

EDUCATION & DEVELOPMENT

2024/26  Turps Offsite Programme
2001  BA (Hons) Fine Art (Painting), University of Brighton
1988  Modern Art & Modernism, Open University
1978  BA (Hons) English, University of Reading

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2026  
The Warp and the Weft, Bond Street Gallery, Brighton
Works on Paper, Turps group exhibition, Hastings Contemporary
Turps|East Sussex 2026 Final Show, BN9 Marine Workshops, Newhaven
Hive, Blue Monkey Network group show, Gallery North, Hailsham

2025  
Diving Queens: Portraits of Resilience, solo exhibition, Phoenix Artspace, Brighton
 100/50 (Who's Counting?), Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London
After-image, Phoenix Artspace, Brighton
 Battleaxe, Unit 2, St Leonards-on-Sea
Turps Hastings 2025 Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, Rye
Printworks, Blue Monkey Network group show, Emma Mason Gallery, Eastbourne

2024  
Paperworks, group show, Newhaven Project Space
Newhaven Open, BN9 Marine Workshops, Newhaven
Regenerate, group show, Volt at Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne

2023  
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
Gallery 207, Lewes, two-person exhibition with Nadine Feinson

2022  
Hastings Open, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, East Sussex

2020 
 ING Discerning Eye, London (selected by Jo Baring)

2018  Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize

2010  
East Sussex Open, Towner, Eastbourne

2006  
Liverpool Biennial Independents: Near Distance, Maze Studio exhibition, Arena Studios, Liverpool

2004  
Voyager, Abbeville, France; Anglo-French cultural exchange, Sussex & Picardie
Voyager II: Lost Highway, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton

2003  
Tools for Recognition, four-person exhibition, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton

SELECTED AWARDS & PRIZES

2026  Jackson's Art Prize, longlisted
2023  Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, shortlisted
2018  Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, shortlisted
2014  AccessArt, ACE-funded 40 Artist Educators bursary
2004  Arts Council England funding to MAZE Studio Group for Voyager exchange with artists in Amiens
2003  Arts Council England funding for Cabinet of Imagined Mirrors, Watch this Space Residency, Phoenix, Brighton

SELECTED RESIDENCIES

2021  Create Space Wales, Ceredigion
2010–11  AA2A Scheme, Kingston University Fine Art Department
2003  Watch this Space, inaugural residency, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton