William Joys channels characters which arouse suspicion about the endorsement of authenticity over ‘artificial’ construction. He performs through layers of subterfuge, and through his own performance he becomes an object, which embodies the prop, the stage, the costume, in order to promote the art of actressing.
Recent Performances/exhibitions
Double Bill, with Stella Pearce, Claude Cahun Festival, (2026)
Metronome, Chemist Gallery, London (2026)
Wilful Pleasure, Bolding x Shoot The Lobster for Condo, London, (2026)
Conditions film and video evening, ICA london, 2025
Guilty, an afternoon of performance, Conditions, 2025
OPerformance live, Greatorex street, 2025
Masterclass, performance and artist talk, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK (2024)
AGENDA, an evening of performance co-curated by William Joys and program director Jenny Jane Tipton, Strangefield, Glasgow, UK (2024)
The Actress Part 1: An introduction to the method and Part 2: Willful Pleasure, Battenburg The Art of Performance Festival, University of East London, UK (2023)
Souvenir, Chemist Gallery, London (2023) Sartre25 with Bernard Walsh
The Legal Stage, Lambeth County Court, performance evening organised by Philip Ewe (2023)
The Will To Believe, SET Peckham, performance evening organised by Rosa Doornenbal (2022)
Paris, Sartre25 with Bernard Walsh, month residence at 450 New cross road (2022)
Masterclass, Hubris, Civic Room and Glasgow International (2021)
William Joys: A one man show at Kunsthalle Muenster, Germany (in the context of Christiane Blattmann’s Un-break my Walls 2019)
William Joys: A one man show at Kunstraum London (2019)
Whitest Walls In Town at the Glasgow School of Art (2018)
Selected Performances/exhibitions:
Jack on the track, Hi ventilation 20 Jahre Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, DE (2019)
Performance Club TV, Raven Row, London (2019)
You do you with Thank You Very Much, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2018)
The Great David Dale Dionysia, David Dale gallery, Glasgow (2018)
Who is Heinzstein? Glasgow School of Art, with Liv Fontaine and Lewis Prosser (2018)
A Prototype Court Room, as part of Villa Design Group*, we call it Ludwig, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2016)
Tragedy Machine, as part of Villa Design Group MIT List centre, Cambridge, MA (2016)
The Bernard Natan Centre for the Arts, as part of Villa design group, MUMOK, Vienna (2015).
*Villa Design Group was founded in 2011, its members are Than Hussein Clark, James Connick and William Joys