Performance.
‘My 3 Days As A Gang Star’.
This project is a combination of artists’ books, zines and performance art. The performance art is element is currently a book launch. The works explores ideas of fraud, fraudsters targeting vulnerable people and it’s proximity to consumerism. It plays with ideas of gang culture, greed and uses absurdity to highlight and question the ideas at work. It has been shown at ASPEX Gallery, Portsmouth as a part of an Artist Talk for the show ‘CLASSifications’.
Bio.
Joshua Raffell
Is an activist artist, taking an interest in power struggles, class and LGBTQIA+ stories. Coming from a canal gypsy background and being neuro divergent gives Joshua a rare perspective, an outsider on the inside.
Having left education with no qualifications, he was supported by City Lit to discover his potential as a mature student and was awarded an Outstanding Adult Learner in Visual Arts Award 2007. He studied at Sir John Cass (BA Hons), where he was awarded the Owen Rowley Award for originality. Following an MA at Chelsea School of Art, he was selected for the ‘Young Gods’ show by Zavier Ellis at Charlie Smith and Griffin Galleries in 2014.
He now lives and works on the Isle of Wight.
Joshua has exhibited on the Isle of Wight, London, Southampton and Portsmouth. He was awarded bursaries by A Space Arts and Isle of Wight Creative Network to explore clay and mosaic, mental illness and metamorphosis. He completed a Residency at ASPEX Gallery, Portsmouth exploring working class culture. He was commissioned to create an Artists’ Book for University of Southampton Library’s Artists’ Book Collection, at Winchester School of Art.