Justine Roland-Cal is a self-taught artist who has been painting for twenty years. She began to make art at a time in her life when the action of expression through painting provided a new direction and form of interaction with the world around her. She has since developed a body of work both figurative and abstract which identifies many aspects of her own life, her daily encounters and her political voice. She makes work that explores very diverse aspects of living. Many of her paintings represent a personal response to what concerns her as a woman and a humanitarian. She has often used found materials such as pieces of wood, discarded doors and large scale canvasses. She has a striking use of colour, which prevails in huge ecstatic canvases of abstract expressionism and insightful documentation.
She began to exhibit in 1994 and since has exhibited in numerous cultural centres and galleries in Paris where she lived for 15 years.
Whilst developing as an artist Justine has worked in diverse areas including street theatre as a clown and fire eater. For three years she worked as an assistant to a fabric buyer at Kenzo in Paris. She was heavily inspired by the exposure to archives of fabrics from all over the world which had been collected since the sixties.
On moving to England she began working on socially motivated projects with homeless and people with dependency problems.
Within the current tendencies of contemporary art Justine Roland-Cal continues to experiment both in her chosen medium of painting and now in black and white photography. Her photography is a collection of spontaneous portraits of unusual characters and street documentation often concentrating on alternative society.
In 2006 she had a major retrospective of her work at Novas Gallery which followed her history of painting through her photography and on site installations.
Press:
British Artist Justine Roland Cal Steps Into the Spotlight
London Artist Quarter
Waltham Forest Guardian
Detention Action event and report
So many characters’: Lockdown portraits on display In my block at the Hackney Gazette
Justine Cal: The Block at The Highrise Project
Also included in latest publication of art review from famous jazz musician Lincoln T Beauchamp aka Chicago Beau from Chicago’s the Art Ensemble of Chicago SPANDANA lll is now available from L. T. Beauchamp Publishing. www.spandana.net
