Dr Moyra Derby

Profile

I am an artist and researcher with a painting-based studio practice that informs exhibition making, writing, curation and collaboration. 

Born in Omagh, Northern Ireland, I studied at the University of Ulster in Belfast and Cheltenham School of Art before graduating with an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London. I joined FAHACS in 2024, and prior to that I taught at the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury with leadership roles at Course, Subject Area and School level. A practice based Phd from the University of Kent in 2022 reimagined attentional capacities for painting, engaging with emerging research in neuropsychology and cognitive science to explore the social, political and ethical aspects of pictorial encounter. 

The studio work involves mathematical systems and exponential sequences, storing associative approaches to colour and material. Often made in research conversation with specific art historical sources that challenge or complicate the category of painting. As an artist I often work collaboratively and engage with exhibition formats as a research process. Concerns with the durations and spatial contingencies of looking, and the rapport between painting and architecture informs this approach. Recent and current collaborations include Interval [ ] with artists Nicky Hamlyn, Joan Key, Conor Kelly and Jost Münster, testing the shared conventions of framing and spacing between painting and film, and Working Spaces with artists Katrina Blannin, Catherine Ferguson, Della Gooden and Jo McGonigal, exploring a spatial engagement with painting, its intersections with architecture and an openness to compositional exchanges between works through space. An ongoing research collaboration with artist Flora Parrott, Distracted Methodologies, informs my apporach to teaching, proposing the creative potential of distraction as a multi sensory and associative mode of attention. 

Recent exhibition projects include Diagramming: The space of a painting, the space of a room, a solo show at The Foundry Gallery, London in 2023, In Correspondence: Moyra Derby and Della Gooden, a 2 person exhibition and exchange, exploring spatial and material contingencies and the duration of experience for painting, RAUMX, London in 2022, room plan, a solo installation at Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building, University of Kent 2022, Grid Narrative for Sophie Germain, Sibson Building, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Kent 2022, Notes on Painting II a group exhibition at Koppel Project Central, London 2019, Interval [ ] still : now at Tintype Gallery, London 2018.

I am on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Contemporary Painting and write about painting and the pictorial, including The Productive Inadequacy of Image for Contemporary Painting: Image Based Operations in the Work of Beth Harland, Jacqueline Humphries and R H Quaytman, in The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, Vol 2:1 2021, Models of Attention in the Journal of Contemporary Painting, Vol 5:1 2019, Indexing Notes on Painting, a catalogue text for Notes on Painting II, London 2018, Constraints between Picture and Painting: Some considerations at a distance, Journal of Contemporary Painting Vol 2:2 2016, Depth as Breadth in Rotation: Tableau as Holding Apparatus, Journal for Visual Arts Practice, Vol 12:1, 2013, Visualising Painting: A Space Drawn in Ratio a catalogue text for catalogue essay to accompany exhibition ‘Limber: Spatial Painting Practices’ at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury and Grandes Galeries de L’Erba, Rouen.

A founding Trustee of Crate Studio and Project Space in Margate, an arts organisation with a history of innovative curatorial and networked projects including the Crate Curatorial Bursary and Collaborative Research Group, I am commited to faciliating support structures for artists and cultural producers. With a background in co-curartion, projects have included exhibitions at The Nunnery Gallery London, Le LAAC, Lieu’ d’Art et Action Contemporaine Dunkerque, The Metropole Galleries Folkestone, Herbert Read Gallery Canterbury, Arch 402 Gallery London and Artary Galerie Stuttgart.   

Responsibilities

• Programme Leader Undergraduate Fine Art

Research interests

Painting, pictorial practices, curating, pictorial art histories, image studies, the neuropsychology of attention, distraction as a creative cognitive mode, painting as material encounter, the ethical aspects of visuality.

Qualifications

• PhD Fine Art
• MA Painting
• BA Painting

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Student education

I teach in the studio for all undergraduate and postgraduate Fine Art programmes, and supervise practice based PhDs.