Jo Lewis
Born Bristol, UK
Studied at Leith School of Art (Scotland), University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and École des Beaux-Arts, Valence (France)
Represented by Galerie Papiers d’Art, Paris and with work available through Vivienne Roberts Projects, London, La Galerie Valérie Eyméric, Lyon (France) and Artiq (UK)
Lives and works in Crystal Palace, south London
View cv here
View 2024 ‘Nearly not there, actually very’ exhibition Press Release here
View 2022 exhibition review here
Read 2023 catalogue text (ENG/FR) here
Jo Lewis is a London-based artist who works in ink and watercolour on paper. Her practice is primarily concerned with movement, natural processes and stasis. Working often in places where movement is most acute like in rivers, the sea and lakes, as well as in her studio, Jo makes large-scale works on paper, leporello books and paper sculptures. Her chosen materials- watercolour and ink- are humble and honest, and have been associated for centuries with those who work outside, as well as the act of recording and calligraphy.
At its core, her work can be seen as positioning herself as a conduit between a natural process (for example, the movement of water in a river) and the pigment on paper, and through this minimal intervention, allowing the drawing to ‘make itself’ or reveal itself onto paper in the liquidity of the ink. In doing so, Jo’s methodology often involves the removal of the hand of the artist from the final piece, and a process of 'revealing' more than representation.
Jo typically works in series, often named by the place in which the drawings were created or the process by which they were created (e.g. Breath, River Li, La Confluence), allowing her to track the uniqueness of each encounter. The serialisation- whether it is in books or larger works on paper- observes and announces these differences.