Draft:Ellie Pennick
Biography of a curator and gallery founder.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ellie Pennick is an English art dealer. She is the founder and director of Guts Gallery, London.
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Early life and education
Pennick grew up in a small town in Yorkshire.[1]
Pennick completed a BFA at Chelsea College of Arts.[2] She graduated with a first-class degree in 2017.[1]
In 2017, Pennick produced a sculpture of Theresa May smoking a cigarette, penetrating herself with an EU flag, and with a necklace with the words 'Strong & Stable'.[3] The work was exhibited by the art collective, Nasty Women, in London in September 2017, which donated all proceeds being donated to Rape Crisis England and Wales and Women for Women International.
Career
Pennick rejected a place on an MA at the Royal College of Art due to a lack of funds, and unable to receive a bursary.[4][1] Instead, she took a job at a pub in south London, where she hosted exhibitions in the upstairs function room.[4] When the manager wanted to demand a fee for artists to participate, Pennick decided to find different spaces to exhibit artist's work.[4] During the COVID-19 lockdowns, she hosted online exhibitions and built a large Instagram following.[4]
In 2021, when galleries had reopened, Pennick held an exhibition at Sadie Cole's The Shop during London Gallery Weekend.[4] In 2022, she held an exhibition at The Sunday Painter.[4]
Guts Gallery
Pennick founded Guts Gallery around 2017 to 2019[5][1] due to her frustrations with the art-education system and in response to the elitism of the art world.[4][6] The gallery is named after the phrase of having "the guts" to do something or a "gut feeling".[4][7] It was created to promote the work of under-represented, queer, working-class, POC artists.[2][4]
Soho gallerist Sadie Coles provided start-up funding to help Guts Gallery establish itself.[8]
In 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Pennick put on Guts Gallery's first online show on Instagram titled When Shit Hits the Fan, which featured 38 artists.[9][5] She feared for artists, who were losing their income, unable to show their work publicly and having to go on state benefits. 50% of the proceeds from an established artist went to the participating emerging artist, as part of a "solidarity-based economics".[2]
Guts Gallery established a Code of Conduct, which included a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry and ensured that all artists would be compensated above the fifty percent industry standard or paid above minimum wage.[7]
Guts Gallery featured artists including Sophie Vallance Cantor, Shadi Al-Atallah, Douglas Cantor, Emanuel de Carvalho, Kemi Onabule, Elsa Rouy, Olivia Sterling, Kemi Onabule and Amymay George.[7][1][10] It also exhibited further artists, including Amanda Ba, Victoria Cantons, Nadine Faraj, Jack Jubb, Miranda Forrester and Corbin Shaw.[7][11] In 2021, The Face stated that "Front and centre of the UK's emerging art scene and part of GUTS Gallery’s bursting roster".[12]
In 2022, Guts Gallery moved from producing pop-up exhibitions, when they attained a permanent space in Hackney, London.[7][13] This came in response to an increase in rental prices post-pandemic.
| Year | Title | Location | Artists | Notes | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | NOW NOW | Alex Lewis, Benjamin Arthur Brown | |||
| Numerous and Often Varied | Tristan Pigott, Florence Hutchings, Rosa Luetchford | ||||
| Plastic Chair Piazza | Kerri Cole, Harry Roberts | ||||
| 2019 | Guts Gallery opening exhibition | Ugly Duck | Mark Wallinger, Guerrilla Girls, Liam Fallon, Alexi Marshall, Polly Morgan, Sophie Vallance, Lucy Gregory, Bryden, Sola Olulode, Florence Hutchings, Billy Parker, Hannah Tilson, Lucy Neish, Andrew Pierre Hart, Valerie Savchits, Douglas Cantor, Tess Williams, Rosa Luetchford, Barry Reigate, Joe Holbrook, Ze Aya, Florence Sweeney, Mary Savva, Alfie Kungu, Rene Matić, Ruby Dickson, Jenny Beard, Pallas Citroen, Robert Cooper, Rayvenn D'Clark, Amy Holt | ||
| Delphian X Guts | Delphian Gallery | Douglas Cantor, Florence Hutchings, Geoffrey Bohm, Igor Moritz, Jake Grewal, Lauren Roche, Morteza Khakshoor, Rachael McCully, Sebastian Eriksson, Sunyoung Hwang, Tania Alvarez, Valerie Savchits⠀ | |||
| 2020 | When Shit Hits the Fan | Instagram (online) | Shadi Al-Atallah, Mike Ballard, Lydia Blakeley, Joe Bloom, Victoria Cantons, Douglas Cantor, Pallas Citroen, Robert Cooper, Rayvenn D'Clark, Kate Dunn, Liam Fallon, Lucia Ferrari, Noel Fielding, Jake Grewal, Sam Harris, Andrew Pierre Hart, Richard Hughes, Florence Hutchings, Yulia Iosilzon, Thomas Langley, Rosa Luetchford, Amy May George, Rosie McGinn, Trackie Mcleod, Polly Morgan, Sola Olulode, James Owens, Daisy Parris, Hunter Potter, Barry Reigate, Elsa Rouy, Valerie Savchits, Corbin Shaw, Florence Sweeney, Sophie Vallance, Wilfred Wood, Joy Yamusangie. | [5] | |
| Begin Again | The Bomb Factory | Shadi Al-Atallah, Emily Andersen, Lydia Blakeley, Joe Bloom, Victoria Cantons, Douglas Cantor, Pallas Citroen, Robert Cooper, Rayvenn D'Clark, Shezad Dawood, Woody De Othello, Jeremy Deller, Ruby Dickson, Rhea Dillon, Lucia Ferrari, Emma Fineman, Miranda Forrester, Amymay George, Jake Grewal, Alia Hamaoui, Andrew Hart, Ashley Holmes, Florence Hutchings, Yulia Iosilzon, Rachel Isabel, Januario Jano, Alfie Kungu, Thomas Langley, Alonso Leon-Velarde, Rosa Luetchford, Hamed Maiye, Polly Morgan, Emily Moore, Alvin Ong, Daisy Parris, Kazim Rashid, Elsa Rouy, Prem Sahib, Zeinab Saleh, Tanoa Sasraku, Valerie Savchits, Brett Charles Seiler, Corbin Shaw, Olivia Sterling, Sophie Vallance, Gray Wielebinski, Salome Wu, Michaela Yearwood-Dan | |||
| It's 2020 For F*ck Sake | Railway arch under Haggerston Station | Corbin Shaw, Elsa Rouy, Ruby Dickson, Andrew Hart, Olivia Sterling, Lucia Ferrari, Sophie Vallance, Douglas Cantor, Kemi Onabule, Kate Burling, Salomé Wu, Victoria Cantons, Miranda Forrester | |||
| 2021 | When Sh*t Hits the Fan Again | ||||
| A New Art World is possible | 147 Stoke Newington | Co-curated by Jen O’Farrell | |||
| A Demon in a Sundress | 147 Stoke Newington | Elsa Rouy | |||
| 2022 | Buffer | [1] | |||
| 2023 | (It's My Party) I Can Cry if I Want To | Guts Gallery | [14] | ||
| 2023–2024 | New Now | co-curated by Brynley Odu Davies | [8] |
Goldie Saloon
In July 2024, Pennick and Mai Harris opened a gay (or FLINTA*)[15] bar underneath Guts Gallery in Clapton, Hackney.[16][17][18][19]
Other work
In 2020, Pennick was the judge for The Global Design Graduate Show, in partnership with i-D magazine.[citation needed]
In 2024, Pennick co-curated the exhibition Ultraviolet, at KKWEER Arts, London.[20] It was a group exhibition featuring queer artists and exploring queer visual coding and language.
Personal life
Pennick identifies as queer, working-class and a northerner.[4]