Verity Coward (1993) lives and works in London, UK
Verity works across sculpture, painting and moving-image to reflect on material agency in the mechanisms of storying. Through a practice deeply embedded in material and process, she explores shifting states, porosity and cyclical refrains; re-visioning themes from cartoons, literature and myth to consider transformation and regeneration.
Sitting between tableau, scenography, sculpture and painting, Verity Coward’s work interrogates frameworks of storytelling and worlding. Using cardboard to model figures, shapes, vehicles and architecture, Verity makes playful dioramas and scenes to paint from. In muddled and claustrophobic compositions, forms shift and combine to confuse perspective and linearity. In between the territories of still-life and landscape Verity teases modes of displaying. Subject-object hierarchies are dissolved and reinstated in this ongoing game of re-arrangement and play of agency.
Toy-like and ‘naive’, the sets and characters she creates allow for an intimate and playful exploration of larger social-historical narratives. The paintings carry the vernacular of their material origins, yet allow the characters to transform across multiple planes and forms of meaning.
Selected exhibitions, screenings, and projects
2024
Guts Projects, upcoming solo, London, UK
Flatland Projects, upcoming solo, Bexhill, East Sussex, UK
2023
‘Unruly Bodies’ Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art
‘Highly Educated Secular Salamanders’ Massimo De Carlo Gallery, curated by Monster Chetwynd
‘Eat Dust!’ film STEMS screening, Horse Hospital
‘Metamorph’ screening at Soul Festival, The Bomb Factory
2022
‘Metamorph’ Well Projects, Margate, London, UK
‘Plant Monsters!’ Workshop Well Projects, Margate, UK
Screening Mahler and LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, Italy
London Bronze Fellowship collective recipient
Arts Council England Project Grant for the collaborative project ‘Metamorph’ that reimagined the classical myth of Daphne.
2021
‘Sound of Metamorph’ Jupiter Woods, London, UK
‘Stand on All Fours’ The Turner House, Penarth, Wales, UK
‘Art and the Mabinogi’ The Turner House Gallery, Penarth, Wales, UK
‘Industrious Demons’ made in association with Chisenhale Art Place screened as part of OSR Projects, OD Arts Festival, Dorset, UK
2020
‘Inner Monolith’ Underground Flower Off-space, Harlesden High Street,
London, UK
‘After Hours’ Bowes Parris Gallery, Harlesden High Street, Off-site, London, UK
‘Goose Goosey Gander’ Underground Flower, Solo Show, Virtual
2018
‘Multi Species Research Group’ SET, London, UK
Contributing Artist, Chisenhale Art Place’s ‘Into The Wild’ programme, London,UK
2016
‘Secret Spawning Site’ (solo) BAES, London, UK
Workshops
2022
‘Plant Monsters!’ Well Projects, Margate, UK
‘Metamorph’ Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK
2021
‘Art and the Mabinogi’ The Turner House Gallery, Penarth, Wales, UK
2020
‘Horse breaker’ The Multi Species Research Group, Online
Publications
2020 ‘On Butterflies Moths and Other Wordly Creatures’ featured artist
2019 ‘The Supreme Deluxe Essential Monster Chetwynd Handbook’ featured artist
‘Multi Species Research Group’ featured artist
Performances and film features
2023
‘Who Named the Lily?’ Monster Chetwynd Production, Art on the Underground
2019
‘Toxic Pillows’ Monster Chetwynd Production De Pont, Tilburg, The Netherlands
2018
‘Vionnet and Ethical Capitalism’ Monster Chetwynd Production Centre Des Artes Plastique Paris, France
‘Dogsy Ma Bone’ Monster Chetwynd Production Tate Modern, London, UK
2016
‘Here She Comes’ Monster Chetwynd Production Royal Festival Hall London
Education
2017 BAFA Goldsmiths University of London, UK