HISTORY

SPEEDWELL was founded in 2015 by photographer Jocelyn Lee as a way to create comprehensive exhibition opportunities for mid-to-late career women and gender fluid artists who have made a lifetime commitment to their practice.

In the past eight years, we have launched over 30 solo and group shows exhibiting the work of over 50 artists. In 2020, in response to COVID, we started SPEEDWELL LIVE! to keep fine art, music, literature and poetry streaming into people’s living rooms. More recently, we launched a robust Artist in Residence Award offering two 4-8 week residencies a year to provide our artists with the sacred time and space to go deeper with their work. Since the residency began, we’ve hosted eight Maine-based creatives in residence and look forward to growing this part of our programming.

Furthermore, we have have made a commitment to producing process documentaries and comprehensive catalogs for select artists as a way to ensure that their work is archived and recorded for posterity.

SPEEDWELL is firmly committed to expanding the canon of art history to include the significant work of women, gender fluid and non-binary artists.

The Mid-Career Artist

An artist who has created an independent body of work over a number of years and who has received regional or national recognition through publication or public presentation of his or her work. To be considered a “mid-career Artist” in the traditional sense, one would expect them to have had numerous solo art shows, recognition in publications, and collectors both nationally and internationally.

WE DISAGREE

The use of the term “mid-career artist“ can create a status filter that excludes the voices of marginalized or overlooked artists who have not achieved the level of recognition their work deserves.

SPEEDWELL was founded on the premise that the lack of public recognition for an artist may have little relationship to the quality and importance of their work. It is essential to our mission to continually challenge and question the prevailing institutional and art market definitions for “great” art by “accomplished” artists.

The NY Times recently reported that only 11% of all museum acquisitions are works made by women. This confirms what we have long intuited. 

We have followed the work of women artists — for 35+ years in some cases — who do not fall into the traditional definition of a “mid-career artist” but who are none the less master practitioners of their discipline. Despite the significance of their work, many of these artists are not being critically reviewed, and are frequently not represented in commercial gallery or museum settings. Their work is little known in the broadest sense and thus is at risk of remaining invisible within the art historical canon.

SPEEDWELL’s singular mission is promote the creative work of women who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to their artistic practice; we support women of all races, ethnicities, sexualities, gender identities, classes, and abilities through exhibitions, residencies, publications, and documentaries. 

We hope you’ll agree with us that supporting the work of these artists is of critical importance now and for posterity.

With gratitude,

The SPEEDWELL Team

SPEEDWELL projects is a (501)c3 nonprofit organization.

Our gallery, SPEEDWELL contemporary, is located at 630 Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine.