joelene.art

Joelene is a Belfast-based multi-disciplinary artist, currently exploring portraiture.  Working with charcoals, chalks and Conte pastels, she enjoys the challenge the figurative work offers.  Previously, she has worked in ceramics, photography, and painting.  Depending on the subject matter, Joelene’s work moves between abstraction and figuration. 

Her initial process of approaching a project is research-heavy.  She enjoys getting to know the key themes of a subject before progressing to substantial practical processes.  The research also extends to the materials used, with an exploration of their properties.

Exploring social issues, often traumatic in nature and dehumanizing, common themes include liminal spaces, alternative perspectives, transformation, integration, cultural values, and perspectives on the nature of existence.

Her most recent work explores 2D imagery, particularly portraiture, wherein she challenges traditional techniques, mediums, and outcomes. Using charcoal, chalk, pastels, and oils. she creates at varying scales, ranging from 15cm to 150cm, while exploring different surfaces.  She begins the work by carefully capturing the subject’s features, aiming to render the image as close to a true likeness as possible. This is achieved through an erasing process: by covering the surface of the image with her chosen medium she slowly erases it, introducing a sense of light, while defining the subject’s features. 

Following this, Joelene disrupts the image by erasing sections, adding water or solvents, blending areas, blurring, and using expressive marks to obscure the image, resulting in a sense of unease and the erasure of the subject's defining features. Through this process, she explores the boundary between representation and abstraction, questioning the reliability of a portrait.

Reflecting on contemporary themes, the work often explores trauma, distress, and despair with an understanding of the current mental health crisis, dwindling communities, and the fluid nature of identity in modern societies. This evokes a heightened sense of confusion and insecurity, akin to anthropologist Marc Augé’s theory of “non-places,” which refers to spaces lacking cultural meaning and lasting social ties, resulting in bewilderment and isolation. Similarly, sociologist Arpad Szakolczai argues that modernity is a state of permanent liminality, where nothing is stable, leading to perpetual uncertainty.  Joelene’s work is a documentation of such theories of modernity.

Exhibitions                 

‘Pulse’                         2025                Group Exhibition                     Queen Street Studio

Degree Show              2024                Group Exhibition                    Ulster University

‘Foundation’               2020                Group Exhibition                    Arts for All

Prizes & Awards         

Scarva Ceramics Award                                              2024                Scarva Pottery Supplies

Remembering Through Healing Award                      2024                Remembering Through Healing

Academic Opportunity Scholarship Award                2021                Ulster University

Collections                  

Private Collector                     ‘Family Dysfunction’   2020    60cm x 60cm   Acrylic on Canvas

Private Collector                     ‘Son of a Mother’       2020    100 x 66cm      Acrylic on Metal