Jill Journeaux has been making and exhibiting artwork since 1978. Having studied sculpture in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she has developed a diverse multidisciplinary practice exploring themes of autobiography, the female body and natural forms.
Her work is characterised by a strong emphasis on the handmade, an interplay between internal and external worlds, and an intimate, domestic scale. Deeply influenced by the decorative arts, Jill uses pattern, imprint, line, layering and repetition to explore connections between memory, identity and the natural world.
Drawn to ambiguity, intuition and the dreamlike, her work celebrates the quiet and evocative qualities of visual expression. Her recent textile pieces explore colour, pattern and the possibilities of the disrupted or reordered grid, creating richly layered works that invite multiple interpretations and reflections on spirituality.
Jill lives and works between Leicester and the Algarve in Portugal, where she has maintained a second home and studio since the late 1980s. The vibrant visual culture of Portugal has become an enduring influence on her artistic practice.
In her own words:
“I am drawn to the quiet, to the whisper and ambiguity, to the intuitive and the evocative, the half remembered and the dreamlike, and to the sensuality of the decorative.”
Education:
1977-78 Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Lanchester Polytechnic
1978-81 BA (Hons) Fine Art First Class, Hull College of Art
1981-82 Advanced Course, Sculpture, St. Martins School of Art
Selected Employment History:
2012 – 2023 Professor of Fine Art, Research Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, Coventry University. Retired December 2023.
2007 - 2012 Dean of Coventry School of Art and Design
2004 - 2007 Associate Dean, Academic and Assurance, Coventry School of Art and Design
2004 - appointed Professor of Fine Art, Coventry University
1997 - 2003 Head of Department, Design and Visual Arts, Coventry University
1988 - 1997 De Montfort University, Programme Leader, Fine Art.
Selected Exhibitions:
2018 Six Artists Celebrate Enid Marx and The British Folk Art Collection, curated by Jill Journeaux.
Participating artists: Jonathan Waller, Jane Ball, Andrea Hannon, Lisa Hannon, Jill Journeaux,
Kollette Super. Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park.
2017 ‘Drawing Threads’, Lanchester Research Gallery, Coventry. Solo show.
2014 Drawology, Curated by Deborah Harty, Lanchester Gallery, Coventry.
2008 Drawing Breath’, Lugar do Desentio, Fundacao Julio Resende, Porto, Portugal. September -
October 2008.
2007-08 The 1st International Contemporary Art Exhibition; Art Vision, Gwang Ju, South Korea.
13 December 2007 – 20 February 2008. Invited to represent the UK by the curator Yoon, Byung-Hat. One of four British artists selected. Total of 80 artists from the UK, China, France, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and the USA.
Selected Publications:
2026 Drawing as Placemaking: Environment, History and Identity, Jill Journeaux and Simon Woolham, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London.
2024 The Artist at Home Jill Journeaux and Imogen Racz, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London.
2020 Journeaux, J., Gorrill, H. and Reed, S. Eds. Body, Space, Place in Collective and Collaborative Drawing, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Edinburgh.
2020 Journeaux, J. The Fabric of Being, in Body, Space, Place in Collective and Collaborative Drawing, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Eds. Journeaux, J., Reed, S., Gorrill, H.
2018 Journeaux, J. Thinking in Image and Text, in Alan Dyer Text and Image, Lemon Press &
Coventry Canal Basin Trust.
2018 Journeaux, J. Six Artists Celebrate Enid Marx, curated exhibition and edited accompanying
book for Compton Verney Art Gallery and Museum.
2017 Journeaux, J. and Gorrill, H. Eds. ‘Collective and Collaborative Drawing in Contemporary
Practice: Drawing Conversations’ Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Edinburgh.
Convenor of Drawing Conversations – 2016 - 2026
see www.Drawingconversations.com