Philippa Beale

Philippa Beale is a British visual artist, sculptor and curator.

Early life and education

Philippa Beale was born in Winchester in Hampshire. She attended Winchester School of Art from 1961, and then Goldsmiths, University of London from 1965 to 1969 and the University of Reading during 1969 and 1970. Beale returned to study at Goldsmith's from 1983 to 1985, and then the University of the Arts London from 2000 to 2004.

Career

Artistic

Beale had her first solo exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre in 1972. In 1978, she exhibited Collected from Here, a series of sculptures and photographs about her mother's orchard at the Angela Flowers Gallery in London. Soon after, she exhibited thousands of real apples at the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh. Since the 1970s, Philippa has exhibited work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Arnolfini in Bristol, the Fruit Market in Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Arts and many major galleries. Beale joined The London Group of artists in 1977 and served as its president from 1994 to 1998. In 2009, Beale moved to France and made a permanent installation at the Church of the Virgin in Vaux, Valence en Poitou. In 2009, Beale started painting trees as part of her new polemic concerning the environment, resulting in an invitation to exhibit in 2013 in Under the Greenwood, Picturing the British Tree, at St Barbe Museum in the New Forest. In 2012, Philippa Beale was featured in the exhibition Beyond Corrupted Eye: Akumulatory 2 Gallery, 1972–1990 at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. In 2014, she was a founder member of the Arborealists Movement, a collective of artists focused on tree imagery and ecological themes. In 2022, Philippa Beale curated the exhibition Gibraltar Our Sacred Earth, Our Sense of Place at Bermondsey Project Space in London, presenting works by nine Gibraltarian artists and exploring their relationship to their homeland.
In November 2024, Beale contributed an essay to the Arborealists’ third publication launched at the Forests, Woods and Groves exhibition at B.T. Batsford Gallery, London, which showcased the collective’s tree-themed artworks.
From October 2024 to August 2025, Beale took part in the exhibition The Quietness of Feeling: An Exploration of Trees through the Art of Benjamin Haughton and The Arborealists at Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery.

Academic

Beale taught at the Hornsey College of Art and was the artist-in-residence at the City Art Gallery in Southampton during 1983. She was a senior lecturer, then principal lecturer, and director of studies at the London College of Communication, Central Saint Martins, and finally as a Ph.D. supervisor at City, University of London.

Works

Selected group exhibitions

2024 In the Footsteps of the East London Group, The Nunnery Gallery, London.
2023–24 Regeneration, Hansard Mews, London.
2022 Society of Graphic Fine Art Members’ Show, Bermondsey Project Space, London
2021 Being With Trees, Curator, Gustavo Bacarisis Gallery, Gibraltar.
2021 Being With Trees, Curator, Bermondsey Project Space, London.
2020 The Arborealists, The Castle Museum, Taunton, South West Heritage Centre.
2019 The Art Of Trees: The Arborealists, Musee de St Croix, Loudun, France.
2017 The Art of the Tree, Dortoir des Moines, Musee de St Benoit, Poitiers, France.
2017 The Art of the Tree, Bermondsey Project Space, UK.
2013 ‘Under the Greenwood, Picturing the British Tree’, St Barbe Art Gallery and Museum, Southampton Museum Service, Lymington.
2007 Blue Bird and Other Stories, 30 years of Conceptual Art Practice by Philippa Beale, collaborating with Jane Humphrey, Graham Diprose, Christopher Plato London College of Communication Galleries, London.
2002 Art and the Spirit, The Stations of the Cross, Site Specific Installation, St Pancras Church, London.
2000 Real Bodies Virtual City, Curator with James Swinson, Outside Edge Artists Collective, London.
1995 The London Group, Curator The Curve, Barbican Arts Centre, President of the London Group.
1985 Critics Choice 2, by Guy Brett, Unquiet Studios, AIR Gallery. London.
1984 Artists for Bandaid at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
1972 The Highgate Series, The Nostalgia Industry, Camden Arts Centre, London.
1971 Art Spectrum London, Alexandra Palace, London, UK.

Solo exhibitions

2023 An Absence, The Margate Gallery School, Margate.
2020 Imagining Trees Bermondsey Project Space, London.
2018 Trees, Chelsea Arts Club, London.
2007 Retrospective 30 years of Conceptual Art Practice, LCC Galleries, London.
2003 St Sebastian, Chelsea Arts Club, London.
2001 Visions, Key London Ltd., Wimpole Street, London.
1998 From Wilson to Callaghan, video viewing ICA, London.
1997 From Wilson to Callaghan, Posterstudio, London.
1992 Return to the Future, Exhibition with Neville Boden at the London Institute.

Selected publications

Beale, Philippa. Forests, Woods and Groves: Art from the Arborealists. Batsford, 2024.
Beale, Philippa. The Arborealists: The Art of the Tree. Sansom & Co / Plato-Beale Productions, 2016. ISBN 9781908326867The Quietness of Feeling: An Exploration of Trees through the Art of Benjamin Haughton and The Arborealists. Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery, 2024.