ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Jo always read a lot, and loved writing in school, but she never thought of herself as a writer She started writing short stories and long titles for her paintings and thought, “what if I write a poem to go with the painting?” She’s been doing it ever since. One example comes from the poem, ‘It’ s Friday Night in Paris.’

“It’s Friday night in Paris, it's the calm before the storm, the darkness is a soft cocoon, the rumpled bed is warm.”

Growing up, Jo attended art galleries in Vancouver regularly, and was exposed to a lot of interesting art. Jo is also influenced by the surrealists, and she loves Lawren Harris, Georgia O'Keeffe and Damien Hirst.

Jo is inspired by the imagery in her poems, but sometimes she just sees something she likes and must paint it. Jo is working on vampire clowns at the moment. They are collaged images of faces and body parts from anatomy books which she paints on top of.

Sometimes she will use family photos or photographs of herself Jo’s favourite mediums to work with are paper collage and acrylic paint. She loves the translucency of water colours as well. Jo describes her artwork as painted dreams Not literally, but she likes a dream-like, otherworldly quality. She likes bright colours when she’s painting a subject such as florals, and a darker atmosphere if she’s doing her vampire collages. She’s completed a few self-portraits as well.

She takes a camera with her everywhere she goes, just in case she sees something interesting and inspiring. She was recently moved by two mannequins in a shop window in downtown Paris

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Jo is inspired by the imagery in her poems, but sometimes she just sees something she likes and must paint it.