A Discussion on Artist Labour and Pay | Stanley Picker Gallery

How to get paid as an artist?
What is fair pay and how to advocate for it?
What are the harsh realities of establishing and maintaining a practice within the art world?

Join us between 1-2.30pm with Stanley Picker Fellow Débora Delmar, and Kingston School of Art PhD student, artist and advocate for artists’ fair pay and condition Charlotte Warne Thomas to discuss issues around artist labour and pay. The talk will be mediated by curator Bori Borbála Soós, and will be followed by a Q&A, where you can ask any questions you may have.

The event is held as part of Delmar’s current solo exhibition ‘Trust’ at Stanley Picker Gallery which explores artistic labour within the context of her Stanley Picker Fellowship.

Débora Delmar‘s practice examines the contextual value of goods, analysing their systems of production, distribution and consumption. Through her Stanley Picker Fellowship, Delmar explored strategies of working within systems, contracts, relationships and institutions. By incorporating the contractual structure of the Fellowship and exploring how to set up a trust in her own name, she scrutinised artistic labour as a form of currency. As an outcome of her Fellowship, Delmar’s solo exhibition Trust expands on the multiple meanings of the word Trust, and build on her recent interests in how value is generated through the financial world, as well as through physical and symbolic impacts of architecture present in gentrification, consumerism and surveillance in the urban environment.

Charlotte Warne Thomas‘ practice investigates the relationships between labour, work and care to disrupt perceptions of value through a feminist lens. Her PhD at Kingston University focusses on invisible labour, both women’s and parents’ unpaid familial care and that of women artists whose work continues to be overlooked and undervalued by a market-oriented art world. The way these two inequalities intersect, and especially the role of ‘love’ in both unpaid domestic care and (women) artists’ work in relation to the concepts of reproductive labour and emotional labour is central to her work. Warne Thomas is passionate about overcoming structural inequalities and barriers to access in the art world, and was consultant editor for ‘Structurally F~cked’, a pivotal report into artists’ pay and conditions published by a-n. She has since presented this research to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Visual Arts; at Tate committees and has worked with DACS and Artquest to research more equitable arts policy initiatives.

Biography

Débora Delmar‘s (1986, Mexico) practice investigates the effects of globalisation on everyday life focusing on issues of class, gender, cultural hegemony and gentrification. This is borne from the omnipresent influence of the United States in Mexico (Delmar’s place of birth), and in the wider world.

She studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, (2017-19). Her selected exhibitions include Body Blend Trade Culture, Museo Universitario del Chopo, MX, 2014, Upward Mobility, Modern Art Oxford, UK, 2015; 9th Berlin Biennial, DE, 2016; Biennial of the Americas, US, 2016; Femsa Biennial, Michoacán, MX, 2020-2021; LIBERTY., Gallleria Pìu, Bologna, IT, 2022; and more recently CASTLES, LLano, MX, 2023; Frieze Focus, with Llano Gallery, UK , 2023 and LIBERTY & SECURITY at Museo Jumex, MX, 2024. She has received numerous grants such as the Jumex Museum Scholarship, MX, 2016-2018; Red Mansion Art Prize, UK/CN, 2018; and the Wolfson College Cambridge RA Graduate Prize, UK, 2019. She has been appointed a Stanley Picker Fellow at Kingston University in 2022. Recent Lectures include SOMA, Mexico City, MX, 2024 and Städelschule, Frankfurt, DE, 2024.

Charlotte Warne Thomas is an artist, lecturer, parent and advocate for artists’ fair pay and conditions. She is based in London and is completing her practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Kingston University, funded by Techne (AHRC) under supervisors Jo Addison and Dean Kenning.

She graduated from Goldsmiths MFA in 2009, and has exhibited nationally and internationally including Deptford X (2023); APT Gallery, David Roberts Art Foundation, ASC Gallery, Chelsea Space (all London, UK); Focal Point (Southend-on-Sea), Phoenix (Brighton); Fundación Santander (Madrid, Spain); Studio X (Mumbai, India); Artplay (Moscow, Russia); Frans Masareel Centrum (Kasterlee, Belgium). She is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts. She is a trained mentor and certified Powered by Diversity Ambassador, and runs a long-standing crit group Peer Sessions, with fellow artist and Kingston Lecturer Dr Kate Pickering.