BIOGRAPHY
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. Born and raised in industrial South Wales, she brings a grounded, reflective sensibility to her practice.
After studying English at the University of Reading, Nelson 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; has twice been shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize with her smoke drawings; and shown 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
PROFILE
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 Works on Paper, Turps group exhibition, Hastings Contemporary
2026 Turps|East Sussex 2026 Show, BN9 Marine Workshops, Newhaven
2026 Hive, Blue Monkey Network group show, Gallery North, Hailsham
2025 Diving Queens: Portraits of Resilience, solo exhibition, Phoenix Artspace, Brighton
2025 100/50 (Who's Counting?), Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London
2025 After-image, Phoenix Artspace, Brighton
2025 Battleaxe, Unit 2, St Leonards-on-Sea
2025 Turps Hastings 2025 Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, Rye
2025 Printworks, Blue Monkey Network group show, Emma Mason Gallery, Eastbourne
2024 Paperworks, group show, Newhaven Project Space
2024 Newhaven Open, BN9 Marine Workshops, Newhaven
2024 Regenerate, group show, Volt at Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne
2023 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, UK tour
2023 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, UK tour
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
2004 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, selected
2018 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, selected
2014 AccessArt, ACE-funded 40 Artist Educators
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