There’s a photograph of Joy Gregory taken late last year, moments after she realises she has won the £110,000 Freelands award. Her face is a picture, expressing her genuine, jaw-dropping, oh-my-god-did-that-just-happen-I-need-a-drink levels of shock. When she heard her name, Gregory – who is best known for the photographic art she’s been making since the early 1980s – assumed it was an honourable mention, that she was just a “worthy” also-ran. “Because that’s what we always have been,” the British-Jamaican says with a wry smile as we chat in her studio.
Gregory’s work space is in the heart of Camberwell. Over the 10 years she’s been here, this part of south London has been transformed. Cranes lifting giant sheets of glass for luxury flats punctuate the skyline of neighbouring Elephant and Castle, while competition for housing is fierce. Gregory, 64, has just rented out her nearby flat and had a staggering 500 applicants. During the same period, the art world’s opinion of artists like Gregory – Black British women – has also shifted dramatically. Suddenly, they’re hot property.
