Victoria J. Dean

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).