Artist Statement

“Observation and drawing underpin my practice.
I can rarely drag myself away from line being the start and end of my work.

Paintings allow for something deeper, however. They are a culmination of lots of observation, lots of looking and contemplating the subject matter and my response to it. An expression of cumulative experience.

I paint in series as it allows me to explore a subject more thoroughly – different angles, shifts in focus and light, but all linked by the same thinking, threading through them. Returning to ideas and developing responses to a familiar place.

I use collage and mixed media as a way of physically showing layers, exposing my ways of working. In paintings, these layers will be created through glazes and opaque paint – building up and then pushing away: focus and ambiguity. Endless shifting, punctuated by moments of clarity.

My work is about my relationship with the land and sea; my responses to being in a particular place; getting to know it in all its guises. The patterns of nature – when land and sea meet sky; the complexities of sharp focus and detail with softened widen horizons and blurred edges. It does not include human figures, as they would interrupt that intensity of dialogue, but often include human-made features, such as stone walls, old buildings or lanes often in a state of decay as nature reabsorbs and reclaims them. Realizing how insignificant we humans are is so reassuring for me. I am a small speck, finding ways to record transient moments of vastness.”

Biography

Jo Ashby RBSA

Training:

Bournville School of Art, University of Birmingham (1979-80)
The Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, University of Oxford (1981- 84)
Goldsmith’s College, University of London (1985-86) 

Career:

Jo spent over thirty years working in education whilst continuing with her professional art career. She returned to full-time painting in 2013. She now lives on Sherkin Island, and the Sheep’s Head peninsular, Co Cork.

Work in public and private collections in Ireland, UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia.

Awards, Prizes and Residencies:

2023: Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig
2022: Cil Rialaig Art Residency, Co Kerry
2019: Elected Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists    
2019: Tyrone Guthrie Arts Residency Centre, Co Monaghan
2015: Cil Rialaig Artist Residency, Co Kerry
2006: Highly commended: Dulwich Picture Gallery Prize exhibition
2004: Elected Associate Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
2004: First Prize: Royal Birmingham of Artists Prize Exhibition 

Artist in Residence: Open Ear Festival, Sherkin Island, 2017 - 2019

Publications:

Artists on the Mizen, author Chris O’Dell, published 2020
Artists of the Wild Atlantic Way, author Deirdre Davys, published 2022
Ireland’s islands, authors Carsten Krieger and Richard Creagh, published 2023