Jo original artwork

Jo is a painter who often uses yarns instead of oils to create her artwork. Although trained in painting, handwoven tapestry is second nature to Jo as she grew up weaving alongside her mother, Leila. The medium of tapestry combines Jo’s love of drawing with colour and texture in a way that’s different to painting yet painterly qualities can still be achieved within it.

The main focus of Jo’s practice is the character of Orkney’s landscape. Recurring themes in her work are rhythm, time, movement, surface, light and a sense of space.

Jo’s research always starts with walking, soaking in the feeling of the landscape and the weather of the particular day. Using a combination of memory, on site sketches and photographs she creates her finished work in her studio. The medium she chooses to work in (whether it is oils, pastels or handwoven tapestry) depends on the idea or feeling she wants to capture.

Although the main body of Jo’s work is expressive, representational landscape, she also explores more layered, abstracted themes within the landscape which investigate the identity and character of a place in relation to time, such as mapping tidal lines on a shore over a season.

More of Jo’s work can be seen at her blog ...