To celebrate the exclusive release of PRAVUM’s first book, Lesser Journeys by Dallie Ago, PRAVUM brings you THE VAULT - an online archive of seven women artists whose work embodies femininity, sexuality, identity, trauma, dating, mysticism and culture.

Art history has generally focused on men looking at women, however recently women have started to 'subvert the gaze' by looking at themselves. Camille is interested in how women look at men, specifically how women visually desire men. She feels the cultural construct for female desire is very akin to a pile of lemons; thus, Camille would like to make lemonade.

I created illustrations for the children's book novelist, Sam angus, which can be found on her website; samangus.com 

Join us for a special artist talk for IKWIL (I Know What I Like) members by Camille Joy. You will get to see the work, meet the artist and pick her brain about the ideas and processes behind her work. 

In celebration of the 150 year anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland comes a freshly eccentric exhibition following the misadventures of Camille Joy, a London-based illustrator and photographer. The exhibition, titled Camille in Wonderland, will showcase large-scale watercolour, ink, and gouache works that evoke a distorted fairytale format and chronicle Joy's travels (on view 4/17-5/28). Please visit camillejoy.com or hawkhurstvault.com for details.

As a prelude to the opening of Camille in Wonderland, the Hawkhurst Vault are hosting a very special film night on Thursday 16th from 8pm.

"We will be showing the first ever film adaptation of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' from 1903 & ‘Destino’, the trippy Disney/Dali collaboration from 2003. Amongst some more recent fantastical & dreamlike shorts we are proud to be showing as the main event from 9pm:

Jan švankmajer’s 1988 film ‘Alice’ . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095715/

Anyone interested in the film history of Lewis Carroll's Alice then this is for you."

In celebration of the 150 year anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland comes a freshly eccentric exhibition following the misadventures of Camille Joy. With large-scale watercolour, ink and gouache works evoking the fairytale format, Joy’s travels tell stories that are as philosophically poignant as they are comically kitsch.  Much like Alice's Adventures, this exhibition is brimming with a fascination between reality, our perceptions of reality and what does and does not appear when one peers through the looking glass. Camille in Wonderland is a show for anyone looking for the excitement and beauty of chance encounters.

Joy uses personal stories which manage to convey a collective human memory. Instead of the Mad Hatter, there’s an ageing London Gangster turned property tycoon. Instead of Alice’s ‘unbirthday’, it’s Camille’s birthday, which involves two men resembling the walrus and carpenter ranting about governmental conspiracy theories. Unbeknownst to our heroine, the ‘drink me’ potion happens to be a psychedelic substance in a water bottle which synaesthetically transports Camille into Manet's 'The Bar at the Folies Bergere.’ 

Drawing from both popular culture as well as contemporary art and philosophy, each series provides unique insight into humanity through the lens of the adult fairytale.

Events revolving around the show include live music, and an Alice themed life drawing with an artist’s talk. Please visit camillejoy.com and hawkhurstvault.com for updates and click here to RSVP.

The Deteriorated American Dream Series 

In The Deteriorated American Dream Series, the artist juxtaposed photographs of her mother deliberately acting eccentrically against letters her mother wrote her in all seriousness. This calls into question the shifting boundaries between child/ adult, fantasy/ reality, sanity/ insanity, and comedy/ tragedy.

Growing up under peculiar circumstances, everything the artist was told she could not take at face value, truth was something fluid and interchangeable in her household. Because of this she became fascinated by the interplay between extremes: how one thing can quickly become its opposite if it is inherently too much itself: something so serious it becomes comical- or the truth behind every joke. In addition, she became interested in how extremes define one another: white would not be defined the same if we did not know the darkness of black.

Cafe Gallery Projects hosted their 30th annual Open Call Exhibition in Southwark.