Joanna Whittle

Biography

Joanna Whittle studied at Central Saint Martins and Royal College of Art. She has had solo exhibitions at Agnews (London)  and the Museum of London, whilst taking part in numerous group exhibitions including, since 2018, Sidney&Matilda Gallery and Bloc Projects (Sheffield), Collyer Bristow and Herrick Gallery (London) and  Portico Library Gallery (Manchester). Her work has also been exhibited in John Moores Painting Prize (2018), and Royal Academy (2019). In 2019 she was joint winner of the Harley Open Prize and Winner of the Contemporary British Painting Prize, exhibiting at The Huddersfield Art Gallery and ASC Gallery (London). In 2019 she was selected for the Freelands Artist Programme, a funded residency, working with the Freelands Foundation(London) and Site Gallery (Sheffield). In 2020 she was awarded Arts Council funding for her project ‘Between Islands’ which included working with the Portland Collection and Welbeck Estate which culminated in a solo exhibition at the Harley Gallery (Nottinghamshire). She was also the winner of the New Light Prize Exhibition Valeria Sykes Award. 

Her work deploys the material and illusory qualities of paint in an exploration of both real and imagined landscapes.  The subjects are an enactment of romantic notions of the ruin with decaying structures and verdigrised surfaces. However, the structures which inhabit these scenes are fragile and temporary such as  tents and façades, or stranded fairground equipment and whilst hey seem to be falling in to disrepair, they are not completely abandoned as there seems to be signs of hidden activities. Lights gleam dully, throwing muted reflections into mud; tent flaps are pulled tight, concealing the activities within

​​The paintings are often constructed from several elements giving them a frozen static quality.  The weather is oppressive, about to storm or kick up wind whilst red light reflects from clouds. The water or mud isolates structures and trees, making islands and allowing the structures to be cut adrift both from context and understanding.   Rather than the uncanny however, the paintings pursue those small moments of uncertainty, or hesitancy in our understanding or perception of reality and consequently realism. Elements give way to each other; grass becomes mud, becomes water; which undermines the stillness, there is an undercurrent of flux or motility, of places emerging and submerging. They are not bodily landscapes but rather operate as small hallucinations or worlds running concurrently or beneath reality, formed by minute perceptions.

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See Joanna’s Lockdown Interview here -

About the work

Crazy Wave is a recurring theme in the work. It is based on a piece of fairground machinery which often appears in different guises and in different places. It moves between sites, disappearing and re-appearing, tardis-like. I am fascinated, always, by its re-emergence. Here it sits in water, its lights lit dully in a glowering sky, almost bucolic.