Ones to Watch 2016: Photographer Juno Calypso

Juno Calypso’s style of sinister, offbeat self-portraiture toys wonderfully with fact and fiction. Using her alter-ego Joyce as the focus of her work, her stand out series last year was taken in the Honeymoon Hotel, Pennsylvania. The meticulously crafted images are mesmerising and Juno challenges modern rituals of seduction and the laboured construction of femininity through portraits that see Joyce alone in a hotel suite in various guises.

The work has led to a show this month at Flowers Gallery, New York after Flowers London selected her as Artist of the Day in July 2015. “It’ll be the first time my work will have been shown at a gallery there. It’s just me and three other female artists so it feels like it’s going to be a good one”, Juno says. Last December, the photographer was also announced as the winner of the British Journal of Photography’s International Photography Award 2016. Winning the Series Award, part of the prize is a solo show at TJ Boulting in February, something that the photographer is equally as excited about.

After these shows, Juno hopes a new project will materialise and plans to go away and shoot more images: “It will still be me, but I feel like I’m slowly phasing out Joyce and instead trying to keep the project open to new ideas”, the photographer explains. “Joyce came about sort of by accident so it would be good for something like that to happen again”. But she’s aware of the pressures a new project can create: “Finding somewhere that beats the Honeymoon Hotel will be a challenge. It’s going to take a lot of searching and planning.”

As well as making work, Juno has big plans to start selling her images. “Before, the only way people could own my work was by buying a large limited-edition print which not everyone has the money or space for,” she explains. “So it’s cool to offer something a bit cuter. The shop will be opening on my website very soon.”

Last year has been big learning curve for the photographer and she hopes to take some lessons forward to the next 12 months. “I learnt a lot just from deciding to go away alone to shoot in another country for a week, especially at a couples’ resort. It took a lot of solo confidence in the face of an awkward situation. That’s definitely something I’d like to try again in 2016.”