Award-winning London artist Jo Holdsworth has a new Solo Show at the 508 Gallery where Jo is one of the gallery’s resident artists. Her ‘Reflective Figures’ Solo Exhibition will run from 22 October to 16 November, with a Private View on 4 November from 6.30-9pm.
In the ‘Reflective Figures’ collection Jo continues to develop her artistic language, while maintaining her focus on silhouetted human figures within dreamily suggested urban and natural environments. Elongated and reflected, her figures are used as recurring motifs in order to explore their surroundings, creating both a nostalgic and a utopian vision for the viewer. In many of her most recent paintings Jo has moved towards a powerful abstracted form of expression, while each of the works is propelled by the artist’s desire to evoke “strong feelings of unity and togetherness” within the viewer.
Form and colour are paramount to Jo. Her distinctive colour palette reflects her love of blue, the colour of hope. The new collection has a sense of calm and a deep connection with its environment.
Reflections in water and in the sand at low tide are part of the artist’s passion for the ocean - another important repeated motif. Evocative images of the boundary between land and water help to remind us that we are each part of this ‘beautiful world’, in which we all live. Jo’s stunning new seascapes, which also form part of this collection, have a richness of tone and a depth of meaning that effortlessly connect their human figures to the ocean and the natural world.
The artist’s technique has a skillful expressiveness and spontaneity. Thick layers of paint are ingeniously applied with a range of implements in a way that mimics the downpour of rain, the puddling of water on the ground and the beautiful yet distorted reflections this brings.
The anonymous figures that appear in Jo’s work are mysterious and yet their emotions are instantly human and recognisable. The mannered elongation of their bodies and limbs bears some resemblance to figures made by Egon Schiele and Alberto Giacometti. This sophisticated play with form, in combination with the subtle colour palette, exudes a feeling that these paintings allow the viewer a glimpse into an alternate and dystopian world where the city and the tides meet.
