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Born in Oxford UK. Payen attended Brighton Polytechnic (now University) for her painting degree, 1 class, she was taught by the abstract painter Jack Smith, and Royal College of Art, MA, Painting, 1988-90. Payen completed a practice based PhD, Brighton University in 2005, entitled ‘Embodying Practices; Aspects of Time, Body and Space in Contemporary Painting’, supervised by Professor Michael Tucker.
Statement
My current painting practice is exploring landscape and earth science, investigating aspects of our changing planet; connecting this with an ancestral feel which for me is suggesting something outside of day-to-day time as well as being remembered past times; It is a way of seeing and presencing like Heidegger’s Dasein, ‘there-being’ and ‘being-there’, to experience nature vividly.
Recently I have been sitting with a particular strand of earth research – Suzanne Simard’s work, author of ‘Finding the Mother Tree’; I like that she is part of the army of scientists who bear witness, research and report back to us if we have the ears to listen and that the scientists seem like care workers of the earth. What I am aiming to do is carefully merge the frame of the scientist; that is my poetic interface with the area with a ‘monolithic everywoman’ vibe. Mixing things up like cosmophilia which is connecting macro and micro views of things in the world and how they seem visually close. All of this is influenced by my meditation and qigong practice – an aspect of which is all about how we are the nature we investigate, less about separation, more about standing on the earth with our heads in the galaxy.
The painting is a place, a stage for me to touch these various subjects and find a kind of visual alchemy. I keep going till I find it, that something that feels illusive, it goes on endlessly year after year, painting to painting, it’s not really about words. Whatever subject I am exploring there is the day to day-ness that runs through everything. There is my modernist background and training; that there is always this still flat light and paint that gets moved around.
Matt Price ‘Melos is both curious and cryptic and stems from Payen’s interpretation of philosopher and theorist Jean-Francois Leotard’s use of the word melos to describe an aesthetic, poetic, musical – almost religious – experience in the stages before a story has been told and before we can reflect on it’s meanings… For the artist, the process of painting conveys a deep and emotional power that can be felt or understood before knowing or recounting ‘the story’ (of Greenham Common). Just as a piece of music without words can capture and convey a profound mood, a moving emotional register, so too can paint’. From the publication and exhibition ‘The Fence and the Shadow’, 2017, MAC Birmingham.
Recent Commissions
2024 A series of watercolours for Earthbound, New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, UK
2024 Wall paintings, permanent display, Dolphin House, Ward End Park, Birmingham, UK
2021 Large scale painting for permanent display of Thinktank, Birmingham, UK
Solo Shows
2021 Uprising, The Art House, Worcester, UK
2017 The Fence and the Shadow, MAC Birmingham, UK
2020 The Chase and the Ambush, Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, UK
2012 Wolverhampton Riots – One Year On’ – Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum,UK
2010 Forever Run, Galleria Gallerati, Rome
2009 Sally Payen- Shingle22, Forte Sangello Art Gallery & Museum Netunno, Rome
2009 Land Grab, Bryant Priest Newman, Birmingham, UK
2004 Neverendingjourney, Brighton University Gallery, UK
1997 Artist in residence programme, Hastings Museum
1997 Charmed Bodies, Cultures Gallery, Brighton Museum
1996 Vessel, Gillingham Museum and Art Gallery, Kent
Selected Group Shows
2024 Earthbound, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
2024 JMW Turner and changing visions of landscape, Norwich Castle, Norwich, UK
2023 Watermark, Meadow Arts & Worcester Art Gallery & Museum, Worcester, UK
2023 We Foragers Unquiet, Winterbourne House and Gardens, Birmingham, UK
2022 Beep Painting Biennial, Swansea
2022 Twenty Twenty Collection, New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, UK
2022 Territory, Sluice and Pada Studios, Barreiro, Lisbon
2022 Ice in a Sustainable Conference exhibition, Bilbao, Spain
2020 Mycorrhiza, AMP Gallery, Peckham, London 2020 Eden, Edgar St, Worcester
2019 Salt Road, Manchester Contemporary
2019 Buffer Zones, Division of Labour, Paradise Works, Manchester
2019 P is for Portrait, Division of Labour, The Art House, University of Worcester
2019 Lab Rats, Greenhill Gallery, Berlin
2018 Sluice Art Fair, Berlin
2018 Taking up Space, Government Art Collection, London
2015 Random Selection, Division of Labour at Worcester Art Gallery
2015 Salon, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 2015 Manchester Contemporary with Division of Labour, Manchester
2015 Hacking the Archive – projection on Senate House, London
2014/5 Outrider touring to Woolhope Room Hereford, Commandery Worcester, Hive Library Worcester, Winterbourne House and Gardens, Birmingham , Haden Hill House Sandwell
2014/5 West Midlands Open, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 2014 ART14 London, with Division of Labour and Star Gallery China
2013 Small is beautiful, Flowers Gallery London
2013 Open Worcester and Open Ludlow
2012 Society Weeks Worcester City Gallery
2012 Joint Stock Birmingham
2012 ‘John + Sally’ Division of Labour, Malvern, UK
2011 Some Domestic Incident, MAC Birmingham
2011 Prague Biennale 5, expanded painting UK. Microna, Prague
2011 The Witching Hour, PM gallery and House, London
2010 Grief and Oblivion, Trove, Birmingham
2010 The Witching Hour, Waterhall Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum
2009 PULSE Contemporary Art Fair Miami, Ice Palace. AM group installation, USA
2009 DOK/VIDEO FEST You3B VJ Installation performance artist Kassel Germany
2009 FREEROTATION Video Art Installation Electronic AV Festival, Hay-On-Wye ,UK
2009 Static3, Franklin House, Hereford Photogrphy Festival
2009 ‘War on War’, Shringle 22J, Biennial of Contemporary art, Rome
2008 Selected artist for Visual, Arts and Business, UK
2008 Open 08 West Midlands, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2008 Static 2, Borderlines Festival, Warehouse Gallery, Gwynne St, Hereford
2007 Static, Hereford Photography Festival, installation, BT Madley satellite relay station
2007 Birmingham Open, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
2006 Borderlines Festival, installation
2005 Untitled, Hereford College of Art
2005 Open, Hereford Museum and Art gallery
2005 Haven, Rotherwas Chapel, English Heritage, Hereford
2004 Neverendingjourney, Brighton Festival
2003 Multi-Media installation, Hereford City Centre multi-site
2001 Open Studios, Red Herring, Phoenix, Brighton
2000 Group show, Brighton Festival
2000 Artists Choice, Flowers East, London
2000 Peterborough Prize, Peterborough Museum and Art gallery
2000 Art Futures, London International Art Fair, London
2000 South East Arts Collection, Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne
2000 South East Arts Collection, Brighton University Gallery
2000 Contemporary Art Market, CAS, Towner Gallery Eastbourne
1994 South East Arts purchase prize and exhibition, Brighton Museum
Publications
2024 JMW Turner and changing visions of landscape, Francesca Vance, Norfolk Museums
2018 The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting
2017 The Fence and the Shadow, by Mandy Fowler, Matt Price
2010 The Witching Hour publication by Freya Smaill
2010 Art of Ideas publication, edited by Matt Price
2008 ‘The Space between Practice’, Longhouse, Birmingham, UK
2006 MADE, Birmingham, Publication Youth Space, A collaborative youth shelter project connecting young people, architects and artists
2006 Longhouse, Birmingham People, Identity and Place
2001 Academic Anthropology and the Museum edited by Mary Bouquet
2000 Commissioned writer for Body Image – Mid Sussex District Council
1997 Exhibition Charmed Bodies Exhibition text by Professor Michael Tucker
Awards and Grants
2016-17 ACE for The Fence and the Shadow curated by Mandy Fowler
2012 Prize winner, Rome Biennial, Artists against war
2012 Pitt Project Space FlagWorks residency
2007-2008 Creative Industries mentor award, working with Matt Price on the production of new paintings entitled ‘The Falling’
2002 Research Award, Womens Federation of Education
1997-2002 PhD Research Award, Brighton University
1996 Purchase Prize for painting South East Arts Award
1988 Jacob Mendolsolm Award for painting
1987 Annabel Birtles Award for painting
Collections
New Art Gallery Walsall, Government Art Collection, The Towner Collection, Royal College of Art, The John Feeney Collection, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum, Annabel Birtles Collection, Minerva Collection, Jacob Mendolsolm Collection, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery