Role
Since 2016 Geoff has been a permanent part time lecturer in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University. He’s currently a first year tutor, supports the delivery of practical and contextual workshops and leads the professional practice module in year 1.
Career overview
Geoff has worked as an associate lecturer in Fine Art at NTU since 2008. He started working at NTU as the technician for the Bonington Gallery in 2006, supporting many ambitious interdisciplinary exhibitions; in 2010 he became the manager of the Bonington Gallery before giving that up in 2013 to focus more on his art practice. Geoff has also been a guest lecturer on the Fine Art Course at Loughborough University. He has worked as a freelance curator and in 2016 he organised the Wirksworth Festival’s main curated show.
(http://www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk/2016/04/26/introducing-this-years-curators)
Research areas
Geoff’s research areas explore the time and materiality through contemporary landscape painting.
His recent work Within the Surface / Field Paintings (http://withinthesurface.tumblr.com/) is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research project, which he is leading. The project will seek to create an original body of work (paintings) where the artist, in collaboration with others, makes all the materials necessary for the work from the his own locality (Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK). The most time-consuming process will be the creation of the linen fabric, which includes: preparing the land; nurturing and harvesting the flax crop; spinning the yarn; to weaving and finishing the fabric. In collaboration with weave designer and researcher Angharad McLaren, we will explore how locality of fibre, and the weaving process itself, through structure, pattern and form, can bridge the contextual space between the process of making the thread, and the narratives of inter-connectivity between man, nature and the cosmos inherent in Litherland’s work. Context and narrative will be woven within the surface; these linen fabrics will create new opportunities to explore the relationship between locality, process, labour and the painted image.
External activity
Geoff is an award-winning artist and has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally, achievements and exhibitions to date include:
Awards and Achievements
2017 Awarded Material Seedcorn Research funding from Nottingham Trent University
2016 Selected for Contemporary Visual Arts Network East Midlands’ Document project
2016 Awarded – Arts Council Grant to support Nature: Here and Now, Wirksworth Festival
2015 Selected as a Master Artist for Kunstpodium – T’s European wide project, Apprentice/Master
2014 Featured in the Bonhams auction A Contemporary Edge
2013 Selected for the Summer Exhibition at the RA
2013 Selected for the 2013 Catlin Guide
2012 Winner of the Surreal Saatchi Online Showdown
2012 Awarded the Wardens Purchase Prize from Goldsmiths College
2012 Selected for the Oriel Davies Open 2012
2011 Shortlisted for the Attenborough Prize at the Leicester Open 23
2011 Selected for the Salon Art Prize
2010 Selected for the FringeMK Painting Prize
2008 Winner of the Nottingham Castle Open
2008 Selected for the John Moores 25 Painting Prize
2007 Awarded - Arts Council Grant, Research and Development of fine art studio practice
2004 Luxa - Awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Arizona Film Festival
2001 Sail Loft Bursary Awarded by Falmouth College of Arts
Solo Exhibitions
2017 The Other Side of the Sky, 60 TNS, London
2016 Opening the Gates, Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donnington
2015 Infinite Summer, Lacey Contemporary, London
2015 Venture in the Slipstream, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
2013 We Were Never Here, BEARSPACE, London
2013 We Will Say Goodbye to Everything Nancy Victor Gallery, London
2012 Flat Like the Old Days Watergate Gallery Hay on Wye
2012 Geoff Diego Litherland New Paintings, Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donnington
2011 Collisions, Art Work Space, London
2009 Conjuntos, Nottingham Castle Galleries
2009 Multiverses, Wallner Gallery, Lakeside Art Centre, Nottingham
2008 Goldfactory Research Space Residency, Egerton Studios, Nottingham
2007 Falling Awake (joint show with Michael Bowdidge) 1851 Gallery, Nottingham
2002 Esperar, Falmouth College of Arts Degree Show, Falmouth College of Arts
2001 long5º29ºwlat50º14ºn, Spring Gallery, Falmouth Arts Centre
Jury Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham Castle Galleries
2013 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
2012 Oriel Davies Open, Newtown, Wales
2011 Open 23, Leicester New Walk Gallery and Museum
2011 Salon Art Prize, Matt Roberts Arts, London
2011 Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham Castle Galleries
2011 Colour, Beldam Gallery, Brunel University, Uxbridge
2010 Crash, Charlie Dutton Gallery, London
2010 Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham Castle Galleries
2008 Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham Castle Galleries
2008 John Moores 25 Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
2008 Muse, Edgar Modern, Bath
2008 Spring Exhibition, J-Gallery, Northampton
Sponsors and collaborators
Geoff’s research project Within the Surface / Field Paintings is supported by NTU’s Material Seedcorn Research Fund.
CVANEM are supporting Geoff over a two year period 2016 -18 to promote and document the development of his practice.
Geoff’s organisation Haarlem Artspace has recently received a grant from Arts Council England