Dean Kelland in conversation with Sue Tate

Dean Kelland discusses his exhibition, Imposter Syndrome, with art historian Dr Sue Tate.

Together they consider the meaning of the mask in the prints and performances Kelland has co-produced with the male prisoners at HMP Grendon, and how this model of practice is historically underpinned by the work of women artists, notably Pauline Boty, Claude Cahun and Gillian Wearing.

Before the talk, visitors are invited to watch Kelland’s film, Catch Back the Breeze (2022), which is screened in Ikon’s Events Room, 11am-5pm.

This event is organised as part of Art at HMP Grendon and is supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust.

About the speakers

Dean Kelland works across performance, photography and filmmaking. His practice touches on cultures of taste and histories of class in order to produce engaging observations on collective and mediated identities. Kelland has exhibited nationally and internationally and undertaken residencies at New Art Gallery Walsall and Birmingham & Midland Institute. Kelland holds a PhD from Central Saint Martins (entitled Flawed Masculinities: “Rupturing” 1950s/60s/70s British Sitcom via a Performance-led Interdisciplinary Arts Practice) and has taught Fine Art for over twenty-five years.

Dr Sue Tate is a freelance art historian whose research and publishing focuses on the institutions of art – their inclusions and exclusions – and the place of women artists in that context. Her particular focus has become women Pop artists and she is the leading expert on the British Pop artist Pauline Boty. Her primary research and curation has brought this vital, important and highly relevant artist back from near obscurity to cultural visibility after a hiatus of nearly 30 years, following her tragically premature death in 1966. Sue Tate curated the retrospective of Pauline Boty’s work at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery and Lodz Art Museum, Poland, and authored the accompanying book Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman (2013).