Creativity – Practice-Based Research

Solo exhibition at Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. From July 2023 to January 2024

Eight works by artist Joanna Lock have been acquired by the Ferens Art Gallery. All eight photographs and a newly commissioned artist interview will go on display at the Ferens to celebrate their 20^th anniversary in 2023.

The photographs, are part of the Orchard Park series which captured the abandoned Vernon House tower block on Orchard Park, Hull before it was demolished.

Kerri Offord, Curator of Ferens Art Gallery said ‘Ferens Art Gallery is thrilled to have acquired eight works of a local landmark by artist Joanna Lock. It’s fantastic that the Ferens is able to show works that represent a memorable part of Hull’s recent history and Joanna’s work shows Orchard Park in a beautifully atmospheric and poignant way.’

Joanna Lock’s photographic series, Orchard Park, shares it’s name with the well-known Hull housing estate on which it was created.  This exhibition marks the recent acquisition of this series and its 20 year anniversary.

Joanna lived, worked and studied in Hull for over fifteen years. Orchard Park, captures one of the city’s many post-war buildings, Vernon House. The twenty-two storey tower block stood empty for many months before it was finally demolished in 2004, and during this time Joanna exhaustively explored the building, discovering the eerie remnants of spaces that were once homes.  

What is visible in Orchard Park, is how Joanna captures the fall of light in these abandoned interiors. Joanna said:

‘Although we may at first think of spaces like those depicted in the Orchard Park photographs as empty, they’re not in fact empty at all. Instead, there’s a play of absence and presence in the images. We might not see people. They might seem absent, but we can’t escape their presence, or at least some presence. Even when all we see is the fall of sunlight in otherwise unoccupied rooms.’

The work’s striking green palette is a result of Joanna’s artistic process. Colour photographs were made throughout Vernon House. Then a select few were projected onto large panels coated in phosphorescent industrial safety paint. The resulting images were unfixed, green and visible only in the dark. As the images dissolved over an hour, they were photographed again to create the prints in the exhibition.

Orchard Park captures a moment in time. It marks a point in the decaying process of both the empty building and in the photographic process, but it also marks a change in the landscape of Hull in 2003.