Joy Gregory's First Major Retrospective Opens at Whitechapel Gallery with 250 Works Spanning Four Decades

Whitechapel Gallery in London presents 'Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey,' the first comprehensive survey of the artist's forty-year career, featuring 250 works across photography, film, installation, and textiles. The exhibition title references the adage about persuasion through kindness, reflecting Gregory's approach of creating visually appealing work to engage audiences with complex political themes. Since the early 1980s, Gregory has pioneered new techniques in contemporary photography while exploring identity, race, history, gender, and beauty ideals. Her practice involves extensive research and collaboration with communities worldwide, including the Caribbean and the San People in South Africa's Kalahari Desert. Gregory studied at the University of Manchester, where she developed her interest in photographic science and experimental techniques like cyanotypes. The exhibition includes series such as 'Memory and Skin,' 'Girl Thing,' 'Autoportrait,' 'Objects of Beauty,' and 'The Blonde,' with works like 'Kalahari (Magdalena Runs)' from 2005–2010 and 'Cadiz' from her 'Cinderella Tours Europe' series. Gregory's work has been shown at institutions including the Royal Photographic Society in Bath. The exhibition runs until 1 March 2026.