Quilla Constance

Jennifer Allen, known professionally as Quilla Constance, is a British contemporary artist, lecturer and curator, born in Birmingham 1980.

Quilla Constance
Quilla Constance performing at 198 Contemporary Arts, 2015
Born
Jennifer Allen

1980 (age 40–41)
Birmingham, West Midlands, England

Education

Allen graduated from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art , St John's College, University of Oxford, with a BA (Hons) Fine Art in 2001[1][2][3] and earned an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2006.[4][5] Constance later studied acting at Rose Bruford College [6]

Style

Allen stages interventions across an interdisciplinary practice of paintings, lectures, photographs, live performances, costumes and music videos. Her live performance work has been noted for its 'unflinching physical narrative performed entirely through breath, posture and non-verbal sounds: panting like a dog, sex noises, then laughter, pure guttural anger, and back again'.[7][8]

According to one commentary it has been suggested that "QC over-identifies with an 'exotic' militant punk persona to interrogate category-driven capitalist networks, through staging and virally inserting her artistic practice within pop culture, traversing music venues, forging protests and entering art galleries in order to emulate and interrupt the operations of these cultural zones".[9][10][11][12]

Career

Allen's video and performance works have exhibited internationally since 2003 and are held in the art collections of Anita and Poju Zabludowicz,[13] David Roberts' Art Foundation,[14] and Goldsmith's College (Warden's).

In 2003 Allen was awarded British and Arts Council funding for her solo exhibition and artist's residency at BizArt Center, Shanghai, China through the ARTLINKART International Residency Programme.[15]

In 2007 Allen guest curated a video screening at 176 London, Zabludowicz Collection.[16] The event featured Allen's 2006 video work 'Happy Christmas Mom & Dad', a piece that sees Allen allegedly perform a seductive dance as a gift for her parents on Christmas Day. The piece was subsequently reviewed by curator Jane Neal for Saatchi Online [17] and Dr Alexandra Kokoli at Van Abbemuseum[18][19] for the conference 'Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings - Situating Black Artists and Modernism in Europe.The screening at Zabludowicz Collection also included video works by Artists, Pipilotti Rist, Gilbert & George, and Carolee Schneemann.

Shortly after completing her master's degree at Goldsmiths, Allen created her Quilla Constance persona as an extension of the exoticised, androgynous punk-carnival aesthetic and malevolent demeanour explored in her earlier video and performance works and 'to locate a point of agency within a hegemonic framework of white phallocentric order'.[20] Allen (as Quilla Constance) subsequently began staging performances in clubs, theatres, art galleries, music venues and the street.

In 2011 she was spotted by 80s pioneers of synth-pop and New Romanticism, Rusty Egan and Steve Strange, who invited her to perform at a reunion in the former Soho Blitz Club.[21] Later that year she performed at Fierce! Festival, Birmingham alongside Cakes da Killa.[22]

Quilla Constance has given performative lectures, exhibited paintings, costumes and screened her videos in galleries such as Tate Modern, Tate Exchange,[23] Van Abbemuseum,[24][25] Jerwood Arts Jerwood Space,[26] The Institute of Contemporary Arts,[27] Camden Arts Centre (Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2001),[28] Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art,[29] the Standpoint Gallery,[30] Nerd Nite London.[31] Toynbee Hall,[32][33] The Museum of Contemporary Art London / MOCA, London,[34] The Kendrew Barn St John's College, Oxford [35][36] [37]Autograph ABP [38] and The Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy Schools where she is also a visiting tutor[39] Allen has also taught at Middlesex University[40] and is an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts UAL [41] [42][43]

In 2010, Allen staged a 'militant punk protest performance' outside the former Punk Soho nightclub in order to challenge the venue for cancelling a Quilla Constance punk performance in favour of a corporate booking. She later successfully prosecuted the club's promoter through Equity.[44][45][46]

In 2015,[47] 2017[48] and 2019 [49] Allen was awarded funding from Arts Council England in support of a series of solo projects and exhibitions: 'Teasing Out Contingencies: Quilla Constance Open Studio' at Tate Modern, Tate Exchange 'Transcending The Signified' at The Museum of Contemporary Art/ MOCA, London,[50] which toured to The Old Fire Station Gallery, Oxford/ OFS Studio;[51] '#QC' at The Kendrew Barn, St John's College, Oxford [52][53][54][55] and 'PUKIJAM' at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, curated by Maria Kheirkhah. PUKIJAM received additional support from The Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN); and Diversity Arts Forum [56] In December 2017 Allen's artworks were a subject for academic discussion and new research at Van Abbemuseum Netherlands as part of the conference 'Black Artists and Modernism: Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings' [57][58][59] Guest speakers included Dr Alexandra Kokoli,[60] Prof Sonia Boyce, Prof Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes (among others).

In February 2018 Allen was selected by Bedford Creative Arts and live art organisation Artichoke (company) to lead women's art workshops in Bedford (as Quilla Constance), and commissioned to produce a banner artwork with women of Bedfordshire to honour the suffragettes and the suffragists, and celebrate the centenary of women's right to vote. The banner featured in a major London procession PROCESSIONS (artwork) held on 10 June 2018. In a statement to The New York Times, Constance said of the Suffragettes "They were really quite anarchic...They had to really fight. And we still have to fight...I think they're here today in spirit, and we're giving them high fives" [61][62][63][64][65][66]

198 Contemporary Arts and Learning was the first gallery to screen Allen's arts council-commissioned video piece, PUKIJAM, which sees Allen (as Quilla Constance) 'perform a dystopian golliwog cakewalk, accompanied and interrupted by a montage of erotic media images, figurative objects and her mutant, sub-linguistic scat vocal set against a relentless electronic throb'. The exhibition also featured vibrant 'exotic' costumes adorning large, acrylic paint on canvas abstractions. 'These conspired with video works, inviting the viewer into a dialogue through which notions of cultural authenticity and the production of meaning were visibly contested'.[67]

In July 2015 Constance was invited to screen her performance art video, PUKIJAM in the Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John's College, Oxford[68] [69] for The 2000 Women Big Party. The event was held in celebration of the matriculation of the 2000th female to read for a degree at St John's College Oxford, and the appointment of Margaret Snowling, the first female president of the college in 450 years. St John's College, Oxford was an all-male college until 1979.

Allen (as Quilla Constance) has written articles for Transition Gallery (Garageland magazine) and The Rebel.[70] She also writes a quarterly punk-art gossip column, 'Quilla's Constant Catch-Up' for La Bouche Zine.

Artworks
  • 2006 'Happy Christmas Mom & Dad' Performance /Video Artwork[71][72]
  • 2016 'Pukijam' Performance/Video Artwork[73][74]
  • 2016 '#QC_001' Performance/Video Artwork [75][76]
  • 2017 'Celsnakar' Painting [77]
  • 2017 'Transcending The Signified' Quilla Constance live performance, MOCA London [78]

Selected Exhibitions
  • 2019 'Teasing out Contingencies' Open Studio, Tate Exchange, Tate Modern [79]
  • 2017 'Transcending the Signified', MOCA London [80]
  • 2017 'Transcending the Signified', Old Fire Station Gallery OFS Studio [81]
  • 2015 'Pukijam', 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning [82]
  • 2015 '(Dis) identifications: Gender as Material' (symposium and screening), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London[83]
  • 2015 'PUKIJAM' (solo exhibition) 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning[84]
  • 2014 'Performance Art: Love, Lust and Longing' (lecture and group exhibition), The Freud Museum, London[85]
  • 2008 'Jennifer Allen presents Sexual Visionaries.... Love, Hate, Narcissism, Mortality, Fetish and Taboo' (curated project) 176 London Zabludowicz Collection[86]
  • 2007 'Dark Glasses' (group exhibition) The Standpoint Gallery, London[87]
  • 2007 'The Dream of Putrefaction' (group exhibition) Fieldgate Gallery, London[88]
  • 2006 'Goods To Declare MFA International' (group exhibition) Airport Terminal 1, Tel-Aviv, Israel[89]
  • 2003 'SKINS Revisited' (solo exhibition and artists' residency) BizArt Center, Shanghai, Chinä: ARTLINKART International Residency Programme[90]
  • 2001 'Bloomberg New Contemporaries' (group exhibition) Camden Arts Centre

Publications
  • 2019 A Companion to Feminist Art, Hilary Robinson (editor), Maria Elena Buszek (editor)-Blackwell Wiley [91] ISBN 9781118929155 [92]
  • 2015 Garageland art, culture and ideas 'SEX' edition No. 18 (pages 15–19) 'Freud and Eros: Love, Lust, Longing and The Oedipus Complex: Jennifer Allen aka Quilla Constance visits The Freud Museum' edition #18 (pages 15–19)
  • 2012 Equity magazine, spring 2012, page 11
  • 2010 The Rebel 'Q&A With Quilla Constance'[93]
  • 2008 Saatchi Online 'Emerging Artist of The Week' Saatchi Art Online Magazine -[94]
  • 2001 Bloomberg New Contemporaries Catalogue

References
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  2. "QC: An Alternative Identity (page 4)" (PDF). Retrieved 17 November 2018.
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  5. "Quilla Constance Goldsmiths MFA Alumni page 5" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  6. "Quilla Constance Graduate Success Rose Bruford Prospectus, page 60" (PDF). Retrieved 9 December 2019.
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