Patricia Townsend

Patricia Townsend is an artist and a writer on art and psychoanalysis. Her book Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process was published by Routledge in 2019. As an artist she works with photography, video, animation and installation and much of her work responds to elements of the landscape or natural world. Her recent moving image piece ‘Inner Worlds’ was shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize 2024 and longlisted for the Aesthetica Prize 2024. It has been acquired by the British Academy and Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, for their permanent collections. She speaks regularly at conferences and symposia, both about her current projects and about the ways in which psychoanalytic theories can shed light on the processes of making art. She is currently collaborating with a novelist exploring the similarities and divergences between the creative processes of visual artists and writers.

Education

2010 MPhil/PhD programme (Slade School of Fine Art)
2002–2003 M.A. Photography (University of the Arts, London). Distinction.
Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (Westminster Pastoral Foundation)
Honours Degree in Physics (Somerville College, Oxford)

Publications

2019 Creative States of Mind: Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process, Routledge: London and New York.
2017 Between Inner and Outer Worlds in Photographers and Research: the role of research in contemporary photographic practice, Ed. Shirley Read and Mike Simmons. Routledge: London.
2015 Art and the Inner World, catalogue essay for Ikke Til Salg, Trapholt, Denmark. / Creativity and Destructiveness in Art and Psychoanalysis, British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol.31. No.1.
2014 Editorial and A Life of Its Own, Psychoanalysis and Artistic Process, Free Associations, 65. freeassociations.org.uk
2013 Making Space in Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena and Cultural Experience, Ed. Annette Kuhn. I.B.Tauris: London.
2012 Containing the Uncontainable: a review of Taryn Simon: A living man declared dead and other chapters, Exposure 45:2, Society for Photographic Education.
2005 Transitional spaces: surface, fantasy and illusion in Surface: Land/Water and the Visual Arts, L. Wells and S. Standing. Plymouth, University of Plymouth Press.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Aug–Oct 2023 Trees, Trauma and Transformation, The Blue Gallery, Brantwood
Nov 2018 – Feb 2019 Black Sun, Blue Light, Brantwood, Coniston
Sept–Oct 2013 Under the Skin, The Blue Gallery, Brantwood
Nov 2007 – Feb 2008 The Circles they Desire, The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness
Feb–March 2006 The Circles they Desire, Borland Gallery, Salford
March 2001 Heavenly Bodies, Paolozzi Gallery, London
July 2000 Transforming Myth, TRACE, Weymouth
Dec 1999 – Jan 2000 Transforming Myth, Gallery 1885

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings

Sept 2024 Inner Worlds, Open Day at the British Academy
May 2024 (ongoing) Inner Worlds in permanent collection, Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal
Feb 2024 Inner Worlds in Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Unspoken, Trinity Buoy Wharf
Sept 2019 – Feb 2020 Black Sun in Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future, The Ruskin, University of Lancaster
Nov 2015 The Quick and the Dead in Bodies of Water, Cornwall Film Festival, Redruth
Sept 2014 The Crossing in Still/Moving DSLR Film Festival, Grow, Brixton
May 2014 The Quick and the Dead in Bodies of Water, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
March 2014 The Quick and the Dead in Alchemy, Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh
Dec 2012 Never to Arrive in World Cinema Showcase, Delhi International Film Festival
July 2012 The Quick and the Dead in Liquidity, University of Plymouth / Under the Skin in Close to Home, East Street Arts, Leeds
Feb 2012 The Other Room in Making Space, Slade Research Centre
Oct 2011 The Quick and the Dead in Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick
Feb–March 2011 The Way in Elusive, Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts, London
Sept–Nov 2010 The Quick and the Dead in Sedition, Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle
Aug–Oct 2010 On the Shores in Your Future Needs You, ArtGene, Barrow-in-Furness
2010 The Gathering and The Quick and the Dead in Elixir Programme, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital / Old Man’s Beard in Thema Psychedelica, Forum des Images, Paris – Pocket Films Festival / The Gathering in Equal Night, The Dissenters' Chapel and Gallery, London
March 2009 On the Shores in Sequel: a Slade/Strang collaboration, Strang Print Room, UCL
June–Sept 2008 Dance in Elixir Programme, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
Jan–March 2008 The Gathering and The Spectators in In the Window, Fold Gallery, Kirkby Stephen
Nov 2006 Dance in Intermix, The BBC Big Screen, Leeds Film Festival
July 2006 Dance in Time Flesh and Nerve, Lounge, London
June 2006 Full Circle in The Bigger Picture, The BBC Big Screen, Exchange Square, Manchester
Oct–Nov 2005 Full Circle in North-West Open Exhibition, Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness
Nov 2004 Present Absence in Intermix 04, Leeds International Film Festival. Toured to The Lamp, Hull
May 2004 The Way in Elegant Underground, raumpool e.V., Frankfurt / The Spectators in The Trace Edition, Hirschl Contemporary Art, London
March 2004 Full Circle in Waterworks, Fotofest 2004, Houston. Toured to San Francisco, Winston-Salem, Portland, Oakland, Miami, Seattle, Vienna
May–June 2003 Full Circle in Attentive, Lounge, London
April–June 2002 Ecclesia Mater and Spotless in Obsessions II, Huddersfield Art Gallery
Oct–Nov 2000 Ecclesia Mater in Obsessions, Herefordshire Photography Festival, Globe Gallery, Hay-on-Wye
March–April 2000 Ecclesia Mater in Obsessions, Standpoint Gallery / Cumbria Contemporary Print and Photography, Beacon Gallery, Whitehaven and Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness (Feb–Apr 2001)