We are thrilled to announce that renowned artist Florence Peake has joined Creative Land Trust as an Artist Ambassador, supporting our mission to build a portfolio of permanently affordable studio spaces for artists and makers.
We are pleased to announce that Florence has joined our distinguished group of artist Ambassadors, including Emmanuel Unaji and Yinka Shonibare CBE, who advocate for the charity and bring valuable insights into the needs of artists in London and beyond.
Florence is a London-based artist known for her multidisciplinary approach, blending solo and group performance works with an extensive visual art practice since 1995. Peake’s work has been presented internationally and across the UK in galleries, theatres, such as Venice Biennale, and Hayward Gallery’s touring British Art Show 9.
Factual Actual National Gallery performance, 2021
Sequel, Richard Saltoun, 2021
Crude Care, British Art Show 9, 2021
Reflecting on her new role as an Ambassador, Peake shared, “I have had an amazing seven years at Somerset House Studios, but there is a limit to how long an artist can stay. As I start to look for new studio space, I am struck by how increasingly difficult it is to find affordable studio space”.
Peake’s multi-disciplinary practice produces movement, interactive sculpture, and paintings that use the body’s full physicality, alongside text, film, and drawings. Her work delves into notions of materiality and physicality, exploring the body as a site and vehicle of protest, the erotic and sensual as tools for queering materiality, and the subjective and imagined body as a powerful force in our objective, flesh-bound world.
Her performances often incorporate large-scale objects and materials that change and re-form in front of the audience, the development of which requires space. “I am struggling to find somewhere that can meet the requirements of my work, a location that supports my practice and doesn’t come at an extortionate cost. My experience reinforces my want to support Creative Land Trust in the amazing work they are doing for artists.”
Florence is celebrated for an approach that is at once sensual and witty, expressive and rigorous, political and intimate. She creates radical and outlandish performances that generate temporary alliances and micro-communities within the audience.
Florence shared “The Creative Land Trust’s mission to support the creative community aligns perfectly with my interests and values as an artist. I feel it’s both a responsibility and privilege to be a part of the Trust’s work.”