Jo Thomas (2)
pen & ink collage/montage with mountboard
21.5 ins H x 18 ins W
Title You Are Her Home
Experimental artist working in mixed media, producing intimate perspectives of human and universal nature.
I’m concerned with the meaning of life and the final artwork ‘You Are Her Home’ reveals glimmers of that.
Inspired by Patrick Heron’s abstraction, alongside Egon Schiele’s productions of unapologetic rawness, I’ve become influenced by Kate Walker’s methodology of becoming a conduit for the art of what James Hillman called “soul-making”. I draw from Carl Jung’s “lifelong objective of making the unknown known … to do this, the conscious ego must surrender to a higher force”.
My OFDAD portfolio explores archetypes, portraiture, rupture and repair, perspectives, and slippage. I play with and skew traditional aesthetics, my art evokes layers and fragments of different dimensions.
The final montage was woven by hand, as a labour of the craft, allowing me to become intimate with disparate pieces of my portrait. This process and outcome are congruent with psychotherapeutic breakdown and healing.
I continue to explore the archetypal artist and her therapeutic role for self and others. I will allow a period of self-creation alongside creating art. A degree will broaden and deepen my skills, an MA will weave my art practice and psychotherapy career.
@joannathomasart
“ My OFDAD journey has allowed me the time to create, embellish, deconstruct, re-place and re-present both myself and my art. I’ve realised that art is about a process of being and becoming, curiosity and compassion.”