Before the Honey Dries: Reflections on the Closing of Joy Gregory’s Show

As the doors close this weekend on Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey at Whitechapel Gallery, we find ourselves thinking not about what the exhibition says at first glance, but about what thoughts linger after having sat with the work.

This is the first major showcase of Gregory’s practice, spanning more than forty years of hard graft. The Whitechapel show features over 250 works across photography, film, installation and textiles, each feeling like an extended conversation with the artist and her process

The show’s title, a proverb from Gregory’s mother, sets an elegant trap: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. 

 You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

The quote signals to us that this is not an exhibition that confronts with a raised voice but at the same time not one that is going to deliver a simplistic message. Instead, our gaze is seduced by Gregory: through lush cyanotypes and ghostly prints, we are lured in by the inherent beauty of the photography before we are asked to rethink our own entrenched ideas about what beauty is. Especially along the backdrop of identity and history

Joy Gregory’s strategy of quiet bait is, in our opinion, her strength, but others may read as a frustration.  Critics have previously remarked on her works avoiding direct polemic. This critique can often be seen as an audience projecting what they expect of a Black artist. Gregory’s work favours more implicit suggestion, which maybe calls for a more measured study.

Walking through the exhibition, we first notice Gregory’s early self-portraits (Autoportrait, The Honeymoon Project). Being some of our favourite works in the space, they do not actually command much presence themselves. But they do loudly interrogate the question: where is the Black female body allowed to stand, and who gets to define that space?

The cropped fragments seen above – lips, eyes, hands – feel at once intimate, and we feel as viewers as though we are flies on the wall to Gregory's personal space. But in showcasing the works, the line between vulnerability and control is subverted, and the distance between viewer and subject is collapsed in such a tender way.

Another beautiful sequence in the show is her exploration of femininity and artifice — Objects of Beauty, Girl Thing and The Blonde. These works explore how clothing and hair are used to perform gender. The cyanotype prints of bikinis and designer accessories below do not just simply show objects; they cross-examine the systems that assign them value. There is a playfulness here that we love, as it still feels radical. As women we have the power to turn tools of femininity into those of both critique and celebration.

Toward the tail end of the exhibition, the tone shifts. Works such as Seeds of Empire and the newly commissioned film from her long collaboration in the Kalahari Desert weave together colonial histories, language and cultural memory. They remind us that the practice of photography is not just about images captured now but also the archives. The stories unfold through layered image sequences, sound and still life (see image below). Thus, we are left as viewers to piece together ideas of empire and diaspora rather than being spoon-fed.

One of the risks of an exhibition on a scale like this is that its subtler pieces can be swallowed by the larger works. For us, it was Joy Gregory's tiny cyanotype studies or collage work. Not just included for aesthetics, we feel they are the key to unlocking an understanding of the themes running through the entire show. They reflect the solitude and memory with a quiet force that matches the louder conceptual pieces elsewhere in the space.

As an exhibition, Catching Flies with Honey does not just document a career but also reframes it. We leave Whitechapel Gallery, not just having viewed artwork, but looking inward to evaluate how these artworks shape our sense of self and belonging.

Written by: Bridget Eke