Quilla Constance

Education

Quilla Constance, aka Jennifer Allen, graduated from The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art , St John's College, University of Oxford, with a BA (Hons) Fine Art in 2001 and earned an MFA from Goldsmith's College, University of London in 2006.

Style

It has been proposed that 'QC over-identifies with an 'exotic' militant punk persona to interrogate category-driven capitalist networks, through staging and virally inserting her artistic practice within pop culture, traversing music venues, forging protests and entering art galleries in order to emulate and interrupt the operations of these cultural zones'. Quilla Constance stages interventions across an interdisciplinary practice of paintings, lectures, photographs, live performances, costumes and music videos. Her live performance work has been noted for its 'unflinching physical narrative performed entirely through breath, posture and non-verbal sounds: panting like a dog, sex noises, then laughter, pure guttural anger, and back again'.

Career

Allen's video and performance works have exhibited internationally since 2001 and are represented in the art collections of Anita and Poju Zabludowicz, David Roberts' Art Foundation, and Goldsmith's College (Warden's).

In 2003 Allen was awarded British and Arts Council funding for her solo exhibition and artist's residency at BizArt Center, Shanghai, China through the ARTLINKART International Residency Programme.

In 2007 Allen guest curated a video screening at 176 London, Zabludowicz Collection. The event featured Allen's 2006 video work Happy Christmas Mom & Dad, a piece that sees Allen allegedly perform a seductive dance as a gift for her parents on Christmas Day. It was subsequently reviewed by Jane Neal for Saatchi Online The screening at Zabludowicz Collection also included video works by Peter Land the Visual Artist, Pipilotti Rist , Gilbert & George , and Carolee Schneemann.

Shortly after completing her master's degree at Goldsmiths, Allen created her Quilla Constance persona as an extension of the exoticized, androgynous punk-carnival aesthetic and malevolent demeanour explored in her earlier video and performance works and 'to locate a point of agency within a hegemonic framework of white phallocentric order'. Allen (as Quilla Constance) subsequently began staging performances in clubs, theatres, music venues and the street.

In 2011 she was spotted by 80s pioneers of synth-pop and New Romanticism, Rusty Egan and Steve Strange, who invited her to perform at a reunion in the former Soho Blitz Club. Later that year she performed at Fierce! Festival, Birmingham alongside Cakes da Killa.

Quilla Constance has given performative lectures, exhibited paintings and screened her videos in galleries such as the Freud Museum, London, The Institute of Contemporary Arts,Camden Arts Centre (Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2001), Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Standpoint Gallery, Nerd Nite London. Toynbee Hall,The Museum of Contemporary Art London / MOCA, London , St John's College, Oxford , Autograph ABP and The Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy Schools where she is also a visiting tutor Allen has also taught at Middlesex University and is an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts UAL

In 2010, Quilla Constance staged a 'militant punk protest performance' outside the former Punk Soho nightclub in order to challenge the venue for cancelling a QC punk performance in favour of a corporate booking. She later successfully prosecuted the club's promoter through Equity.

In 2015, 2016 and 2017 Allen was awarded funding from Arts Council England in support of a series of solo exhibitions: 'Transcending The Signified' at The Museum of Contemporary Art/ MOCA, London, which toured to The Old Fire Station Gallery, Oxford/ OFS Studio ; 'Hashtag QC' at The Kendrew Barn, St John's College, Oxford and 'PUKIJAM' at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, curated by Maria Kheirkhah. PUKIJAM received additional support from The Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN); and Diversity Arts Forum

198 Contemporary Arts and Learning was the first gallery to screen Allen's arts council-commissioned video piece, PUKIJAM, which sees Allen (as Quilla Constance) 'perform a dystopian golliwog cakewalk, accompanied and interrupted by a montage of erotic media images, figurative objects and Allen's mutant, sub-linguistic scat vocal set against a relentless electronic throb'. The exhibition also featured vibrant 'exotic' costumes adorning large, acrylic paint on canvas abstractions. 'These conspired with video works, inviting the viewer into a dialogue through which notions of cultural authenticity and the production of meaning were visibly contested'.

In July 2015 Quilla Constance was invited to screen PUKIJAM in the Kendrew Barn Gallery, St John's College, Oxford for The 2000 Women Big Party. The event was held in celebration of the matriculation of the 2000th female to read for a degree at St John's College Oxford, and the appointment of Margaret Snowling, the first female president of the college in 450 years. St John's College, Oxford was an all-male college until 1979.

Quilla Constance has written articles for Transition Gallery (Garageland magazine) and The Rebel. She also writes a quarterly punk-art gossip column, 'Quilla's Constant Catch-Up' for La Bouche Zine.

Works

Publications