Artist
Part of events on ArtRabbit in: London, Gravesend
Joanna McCormick is an interdisciplinary artist who has exhibited widely both in the UK and abroad. She has worked as artist in residence for organisations such as Westminster Arts, The Holly Lodge Centre at The Royal Parks in Richmond and for the National Trust. Joanna’s passion is painting. Having been given her first set of oil paints at he age of 12, she fell in love with the medium and its expressive force. All her work therefore displays an element of painting. This is expressed in various ways – in her three dimensional sculptural works Joanna uses paint as a finish, and in her live art and performance work she creates elaborate costumes, including masks ansd head pieces which are decorated using oil or acrylic paint. She has shown work at various venues across the UK and abroad, The Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, The Fashion and Textile Museum, Westminster Reference Library and Cass Art’s art spaces throughout London. Joanna is a regular contributor to artist and curator Vanya Balogh's projects – currently exhibiting with Empire II at the 57th Venice Biennale. Joanna has also devised and delivered many live art interactions. For example, with Sarah Sparkes for Chutney Preserves and Frog Morris for The Royal Academy of Arts. Joanna paints and draws in oils, watercolour, pastel, pen, pencil and charcoal. She also takes photographs and film footage that is often obscure and abstract, examining the structures and colours of the world around us and drawing attention to minutiae and the luscious beauty that can be found within the everyday. Joanna uses vibrant colours and a broad range of painterly techniques. From free scumbling translucent brushwork, to intensely fine lined detail drawn or written in paint onto flat colours across the surface, and stencilling using hand made stencils. Her work is quintessentially English, with a strong inspiration from art history and other cultures across the world, in particular Japan. Joanna's work snatches inspiration from retro imagery and texts from poetry, song lyrics and reminiscence sessions. Victorian scrap books and medieval chap books, wallpaper and textile designs. William Morris and Sanderson. Old photographs, such as those found in "We are the people" - Tom Phillips' exhibition of postcards at the V&A, and botanical illustrations, such as those by Maria Sybilla Merian – found in The Royal Collection, London. Weaving historical and political narratives into a wonderland fairytale world, that viewers are encouraged to freely interpret, and create their own story from. Joanna teaches art classes at The Thomas Calton Centre in Peckham, for Southwark Adult Learning. She runs “Shrine to the Seasons”, a regular art project at The Union Chapel in Islington. This is a mini residency comprising of a series of collaborative art outreach drop in sessions, where people gather together to make art to be developed into a contemporary icon installation for display at the chapel. Sessions take place every second Wednesday of the month, from 11am. More info on Jo and her art can be found at: www.joart.info.
Exhibitions and Events
2023
