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Born 14th October, 1980 (Belfast)
Website victoriajdean.com

Victoria J. Dean is a photographic artist based near Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her practice explores the human propensity to rationalise space, in the context of place and landscape. Dean graduated with an MFA Photography with distinction from Ulster University in 2017, receiving the Royal Ulster Academy Award for Outstanding Students, and BA (Hons) Photography from Blackpool and the Fylde College, Lancashire in 2003. She has exhibited and been published internationally, with her most recent series, The Illusion of Purpose, winning her a place in the LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards 2017 and as a finalist in the Klompching Gallery’s FRESH 2017. The series featured in Source Issue 95 in 2018 and was selected by Olivia Arthur (Magnum) and Anna Sparham (Curator, Museum of London) in Source Magazine’s Graduate Photography Online 2017 Selections.

Currently a studio holder at Flax Art Studios, Dean is represented by the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast. Her work is part of a number of collections including the David Kronn Collection, the Office of Public Works State Art Collection, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Collection. Her book, The Illusion of Purpose, published by Another Place Press in 2018, is held in the Martin Parr Foundation Archive.

Publications

Photography books by Victoria J. Dean

  • 2018 The Illusion of Purpose, Another Place Press, ISBN 978-1-9997424-8-5 1

Photography books with contribution by Victoria J. Dean

  • 2017 The Best of LensCulture Volume 2, Schilt Publishing, ISBN 978-90-5330-902-5 2
  • 2013 Colin Graham, Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, Belfast: Belfast Exposed, ISBN 978-0-9561766-1-5 3
  • 2005 Jeremy Webb, Creative Vision: Digital and Traditional Methods for Inspiring Innovative Photography, Lausanne: AVA Publishing SA, ISBN 2-88479-072-1 4

Awards and honours

  • 2017 LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards, LensCulture
  • 2017 FRESH 2017 Finalist, Klompching Gallery, New York, USA
  • 2017 Royal Ulster Academy Award for Outstanding Students, Royal Ulster Academy, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2013 Flash Forward Selected Winner, The Magenta Foundation, Toronto, Canada
  • 2013 RUA RED Solo Award, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2007 PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers for 2007, Photo District News, New York, USA
  • 2007 Flash Forward Honourable Mention, The Magenta Foundation, Toronto, Canada
  • 2005 New Contemporaries Award for Photography, Northern Ireland Visual Arts Forum, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Public Funding

  • 2017 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual Artist: General Art Award
  • 2014 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual: Travel Award
  • 2013 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual Artist: General Art Award
  • 2010 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual Artist: Artist’s Career Enhancement Scheme
  • 2009 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual Artist: General Art Award
  • 2007 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Support for the Individual Artist: General Art Award

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 2018 The Illusion of Purpose, OFF_Festival, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 2014 The Fortified Coastline, Paul McAree, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2013 The Fortified Coastline, The Naughton Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2012 The Fortified Coastline, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, Northern Ireland 5

Group exhibitions

  • 2019 Arts Council NI Collection, Deirdre Robb, Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2019 There and Not There, Siamsa Tire, Tralee, Ireland
  • 2018 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 137th Annual Exhibition, Ulster Muserum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2018 Royal Hibernian Academy’s 188th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2018 There and Not There, Sarah McAvera, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2018 LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards Exhibition, Klompching Gallery, New York, USA
  • 2017 RUA RED Winter Open, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2017 Halftone, The Library Project, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2017 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 136th Annual Exhibition, Ulster Muserum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2016 Idiolect, Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2016 Greetings From Ireland, Landskrona Foto Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2016 On the Border between Time and Loss, Maeve Mulrennan, Galway Arts Centre, Galway, Ireland
  • 2015 Halftone, The Library Project, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2015 Emerging: Slideshow Night, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, USA 6
  • 2015 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
  • 2015 Royal Hibernian Academy’s 185th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2015 Greetings From Ireland, City Assembly House, PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2015 Greetings From Ireland, Triennial of Photography, Hamburg, Germany
  • 2014 Greetings From Ireland, The Library Project, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2014 Circulation(s) 2014: Festival de la Jeune Photographie Européenne, Le Centquatre, Paris, France
  • 2014 Little Kingdoms, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2014 RUA RED Winter Open, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2014 Flash Forward Festival, Julien Beaupré Ste-Marie, MaryAnn Camilleri & Aline Smithson, Fairmont Battery Wharf, Boston, USA
  • 2013 Flash Forward, Julien Beaupré Ste-Marie, MaryAnn Camilleri & Aline Smithson, Photofusion, London, UK 7
  • 2013 Flash Forward, Julien Beaupré Ste-Marie, MaryAnn Camilleri & Aline Smithson, Neubacher Shor Contemporary, Toronto, Canada
  • 2013 Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, Karen Downey, Belfast Exposed and The MAC, Belfast, Northern Ireland 8
  • 2013 Precursor, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2013 Describing Architecture, City Assembly House, Dublin, Ireland 9
  • 2013 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 132nd Annual Exhibition, Ulster Muserum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2013 RUA RED Winter Open, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2010 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 129th Annual Exhibition, Ulster Muserum, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2010 RUA RED Summer Open, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2010 Elective Perspective, Peter Richards, Galeria Arsenał , Białystok, Poland 10
  • 2010 SCOPE New York, New York, USA
  • 2009 AOP Open, AOP Gallery, London, UK
  • 2009 RUA RED Summer Open, RUA RED, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2008 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 127th Annual Exhibition, Titanic Drawing Offices, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2008 Foreword, Menier Gallery, London, UK
  • 2007 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 126th Annual Exhibition, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2007 Everything Equally, Touchstones Art Gallery, Rochdale, UK
  • 2006 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 125th Annual Exhibition, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2006 149th Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition
  • 2005 148th Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition
  • 2005 New Contemporaries 2005, ArtTank Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2004 AOP Open, AOP Gallery, London, UK

Projects

  • The Illusion of Purpose (2017)
    Technology is restructuring our communication methods, transforming our perceptions and interactions with our environment, and rendering the physical realm comparatively cumbersome and slow. Disconnected from the modern digital world, these material structures and the systems in which they once functioned are obsolete. With the simplicity and directness of a symbolic form, each structure withholds its message, alluding to a relic from a forgotten language.
    The Illusion of Purpose explores ideas of materiality, monumentality and the sculptural, questioning the relevance of the physical in our increasingly virtual age, and in a world of communication hijacked by technology.11
  • The Fortified Coastline (2010-2012)
    The Fortified Coastline explores the built environment of the Irish coast, surveying the architecture of recreational space that exists, often in discord with the purpose of the space and the unrestrained natural environment.12 The Fortified Coastline was made possible through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Artists Career Enhancement Programme (ACES).

Works

External links & References

Further reading

Notes

  1. Victoria J Dean – The Illusion of Purpose / another place press https://anotherplacepress.bigcartel.com/product/victoria-j-dean-the-illusion-of-purpose
  2. The Best of LensCulture Vol. 2: https://www.lensculture.com/bookshop-us
  3. Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography: https://www.belfastexposed.org/books/northern-ireland-30-years-of-photography/
  4. Creative Vision: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/creative-vision-9782884790727/
  5. The Fortified Coastline at Millennium Court Arts Centre: http://millenniumcourt.org/victoria-j-dean-the-fortified-coastline-6-oct-24-nov-2012
  6. Feature on Annenberg Space for Photography: https://www.annenbergphotospace.org/person/victoria-dean/
  7. Flash Forward exhibition at Photofusion: https://www.photofusion.org/exhibitions/photography-exhibitionflash-forward-2013/
  8. Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography: https://themaclive.com/exhibition/northern-ireland-30-years-of-photography
  9. Describing Architecture Exhibition: http://www.describingarchitecture.com/portfolio/the-fortified-coastline-victoria-j-dean/
  10. Elective Perspective at Galeria Arsenał: https://galeria-arsenal.pl/wystawy/elective-perspective
  11. The Illusion of Purpose: http://www.victoriajdean.com/projects/the-illusion-of-purpose/
  12. The Fortified Coastline in two parts: http://www.victoriajdean.com/projects/the-fortified-coastline-i/ & http://www.victoriajdean.com/projects/the-fortified-coastline-ii/