Josh Armitage

(Painter, Lives and works in London)

Blue Bridge

Blue Bridge
12inch x 10inch
Oil on canvas
2023

Bridge Under a Calm Sky

Bridge Under A Calm Sky
12inch x 10inch
Oil on canvas
2023

The River in Summer

The River in Summer

82cm x 102cm x 4cm

Oil and acrylic on canvas

2023

The Good Intent The Good Intent (alongside artworks by Anne Ryan & Phillip Allen), Guest Gallery, Photography: Guest Gallery
Downpour

Downpour
10inch x 12inch
Oil, House paint and charcoal on canvas
2021

Garden

Garden
10inch x 12inch each (diptych)
Oil, House paint and charcoal on canvas
2021

Room-E_670

Room
10inch x 12inch
oil and house paint on canvas
2021

Golum_670

Golum
10inch x 12inch
Oil, House paint and charcoal on canvas
2021

Dialogues 2021 Dialogues 2021, Photography: Kassia Karr, installation view with work by Martin Jackson, Tom Scotcher and Phil Goss
Dialogues 2021 Dialogues 2021, Photography: Kassia Karr, installation view with work by Martin Jackson and Tom Scotcher
Eastlake 1

Eastlake 1
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2018

Eastlake 5

Eastlake 5
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2018

Eastlake 2

Eastlake 2
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2018

Condo 2020 Condo 2020, Sunday Painter in collaboration with Lulu, Mexico City
Condo 2020 Condo 2020, Sunday Painter in collaboration with Lulu, Mexico City
Condo 2020 Condo 2020, Sunday Painter in collaboration with Lulu, Mexico City - view with sculptural work by Angelika Loderer, Sophie Tappeiner Gallery, Vienna.
The Singing Gardener

The Singing Gardener
10inch x 12inch
Oil, House paint and charcoal on canvas
2021

JArmitageBeforeorangesky_670

Before (orange sky)
18inch x 16inch
oil and charcoal on canvas
2021

Bousfield 01

Bousfield 01
93cm x 77cm
oil on canvas
2020

When the Leaves Come Back

When The Leaves Come Back
10inch x 12inch
Oil, House paint and charcoal on canvas
2021

Bousfield 03

Bousfield 03
100cm x 80cm
Oil and charcoal on canvas
2020

Knocking it out of the park, By Paint Talk Knocking it out of the park, By Paint Talk
Open Door with Rain

Open Door With Rain
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2021

Open Door in Spring

Open Door in Spring
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2021

Open Door with Red Rain

Open Door with Red Rain
10inch x 12inch
oil on canvas
2021

Open Door With Foliage

Open Door with Foliage
18inch x 15inch
oil on canvas
2021

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade Photography: Corey Bartle-Sanderson “Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade, Photography: Corey Bartle-Sanderson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade Photography: Corey Bartle-Sanderson “Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade, installation view with painting by Holly Mills
“Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade Photography: Corey Bartle-Sanderson “Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade, installation view with work by Malcolm Bradley, Siggi Sekira and Tom Hardwick-Allan

Joshua Armitage (b. Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, 1986) graduated from Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and lives and works in London.

Notable exhibitions include The Good Intent in 2024 at Guest Gallery, Brooklyn, USA, a presentation at Sunday Painter gallery as part of Condo 2020, curated by Lulu gallery, Mexico City, “Hope” is the thing with feathers in 2021 at South Parade, Deptford, London and Moderato Cantabile in 2022 at Stoppenbach and Delestre, London. Through 2023 Josh worked on a self-initiated residency project with Wakefield based artist Zoë Carlon resulting in a publication and exhibition in Leeds and London.

Joshua Armitage’s work aims to merge sensory experiences and diverse drawing and painting techniques, aiming to evoke remembered sensations. Place holds a fascination for him, serving as a focal point for exploring how architecture intertwines with spirituality, memory, and emotion. The Latin phrase 'genius loci,' refers to the powerful, protective spirit of a place and encapsulates this sentiment. Paul Nash referenced it in relation to landscapes or landmarks infused with a distinctive ambiance, sensing a spiritual presence in certain locations—an intangible magic and a feeling of existing outside of time, themes resonating with Armitage’s own work.



Texts by others:

"Joshua Armitage is a painter who works from observation and memory. Departing from drawing, Armitage sketches a given motif which then becomes a basis for a painting. Motifs, which range from architecture to bricks to skyscapes, are selected for personal reasons. They are then explored through repeated depictions whose formal approach varies from a more dry and grainy application to wet on wet oil paint. Throughout the process, it becomes difficult to determine whether the repetition has to do with the trauma of loss or a formal interest in the motif or somehow both. This ambiguity functions as a source of bewitching tension- to be haunted by the motif or charmed by its facture and composition? - which foregrounds the ultimate ambiguity of painting. In this way, along with its predication for a more intimate scale, the work is reminiscent of Lois Dodd and Maureen Gallace, while remaining very much its own, as per its meteorologically moody English context and muted, colourful palette.


Chris Sharp, Lulu, Mexico City


.
Encountering Joshua Armitage’s series of small-scale facade paintings at the Sunday Painter feels like stepping up to the ice cream counter: you’re impossibly invited to choose your favourite.
.
In all cases, one is enticed by the paint as much as the image, which in some works lies heavy and wet, while in others, dry and sparse. Shady and cool works elegantly contrast in their palette with the tangerine and sun-drenched.
.
Certainly, what’s different about each work comes forward with the repetition in theme. For example, the edge: in some cases formed out of a void of raw canvas, and in others, a heavy, bold mark, the edge recalls in the former cases Matisse’s “The Red Studio,” and in the latter, his “Self-Portrait in a Striped T-Shirt.” And the windows: in some paintings, they open into an interior beyond, whereas in others, they simply reflect daylight, though it’s never entirely obvious.
.
Eschewing voyeurism, Armitage claims that the works are all various views of his own home. In this case, the ambivalent windows into the artist’s home compellingly suggest eyes into a self—the inner world of which is abstract and bright, as much an interior as a reflection of what lays outside.
.
Unlike with ice cream, I was able to step back and appreciate all of the paintings at once, and how, as with any memorable series, each work transcends its individuality, becoming as much a piece in relation to the whole—which emerges as a poignant self-portrait.

Grace Mattingly

Exhibitions & Residencies

Upcoming/Current


2024

The Good Intent | Guest Gallery, Brooklyn USA (5 June - 11 Aug)
In Absentia | Blue Shop Gallery, London UK (11 July - 28 July) ARTLOGIC Private View

2023

What we make, where | Hyde Park Art Club, Leeds
What we make, where | Amp Gallery, Peckham

2022

Its Real Outside | Dept.Con.Temporary
Gertrude Presents | Truman Brewery
Moderato Cantabile | Stoppenbach & Delestre
Pathways on Paper | South Parade
Dream Baby Dream | Fitzrovia Gallery
Blink presents Room Share 2 | Safehouse One

2021

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, South Parade, Deptford UK
Art UK, Charity auction with The Auction Collective, London UK
Dialogues No.01, Centre for Recent Drawing, UK (Curator)
Last Minute - hArts Lane, Deptford, London UK
The Top 100 - The Auction Collective, Dept Store Brixton, UK
A Small Good Thing - Online
Paint Talk Presents - With Love
ING Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary- Short Listed
Wells Art Contemporary- online competition
Works on Paper - Blue Shop Cottage

2020

'Condo 2020', Sunday Painter, Vauxhall, London UK
'These Past Three Months', The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co Clare, Ireland
Profile Gallery - Online Exhibition
‘Curated for Covid, Online exhibition in aid of Mind UK
‘About This Studio’, Online exhibition

2018

'Big Link', Young Space at Standard Projects, Hortonville, Wisconsin, USA
‘For Sale’, The Norman Rea Gallery, York
'Watery, Fluid', Cloud Cuckoo Land Gallery, London
'Painting A Better Picture For Children' for the NSPCC, The Concept Store, London
Summer in Winter - Theatre Delicatessen, London

2017

Culina Artem, Gridshell, Weald and Downland Living Museum, Chichester, West Sussex
Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize, London
The London Arts Board : A Retrospective, Camberwell, London
The Junction, London Arts Board, Peckham, London

2016

Rhythm and Depiction, Centre for Recent Drawing, London
The Waiting Room, Mercer Chance Gallery London
The Smaller The Larger, Sobering Gallery, Paris, France
Drawing Residency, Centre for Recent Drawing, London

Pre

Surviving the Savage Sea, Centre for Recent Drawing, London, UK, 2014
Light/Materiality, Second Home, London, UK, 2014
SHOW RCA, Stevens Building, London, UK, 2012
WIP, Henry Moore Gallery, London, UK, 2012
WIP, Hockney Gallery, London, UK, 2011


Publications/Press

What We Make, Where, Zoë Carlon & Joshua Armitage, 2023
Art Forum, Harry Burke around Condo London 2020
Saatchi Art One to Watch 2017 Interview
A Contemporary Zine, ICA/University of Kent, 2015
Drawings 2010, Self Published, 2010
RCA Animation Portfolio 2011, Royal College of Art, 2011


Teaching

Associate Lecturer, Drawing tutor, Kingston School of Art, Kingston University
Associate Lecturer, Camberwell College of Art, UAL
Associate Lecturer, UCA Farnham
Associate Lecturer, UCA Canterbury
Associate Lecturer, School of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths University
Visiting Drawing Tutor, National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield


Education

Royal College of Art, London, MA. 2010 – 2012
Manchester School of art, Manchester, BA 2005 – 2008
Batley School of Art, ND and Foundation Art and Design, 2002 - 2005

Feel free to email me with questions on the below email or subscribe for updates about new work and exhibitions:


hijosharmitage@gmail.com
@joshua.armitage


For enquiries about available works email direct or see:

Guest Gallery NYC

Blueshop Gallery ARTLOGIC - for enquiries email : hello@blueshopcottage.com

www.gertrude.com