Jo Self on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Jo Self (née Lee; born 15 January 1956) is an English contemporary artist and poet.
AS Byatt, ''
Official Jo Self web siteBBC - Radio 4 - Woman's Hour - Jo SelfBBC Radio 4 - MidweekBlooms for the BuddhaJo Self at HumanFlower ProjectBrowse & Darby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self, Jo 1956 births Living people 20th-century English painters 21st-century English painters 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art English women painters English flower artists Jo
Jo Self (née Lee; born 15 January 1956) is an English contemporary artist and poet.
Background
Self was born and grew up on aHertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
rural housing estate. Before becoming an artist, she worked in various jobs including as a croupier ("bunny") at the Playboy Club, and lodged with Ian Board of the Colony Club where she met artist Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
, writer Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Ann Gilmour (née Smart; born November 3, 1987) is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She gained national attention at age 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. ...
, author-journalist Jonathan Self (brother of novelist Will Self
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English writer, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Se ...
) to whom she was briefly married. After the birth of her first child she trained at Wimbledon School of Art
Wimbledon College of Arts, formerly Wimbledon School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college specialises in theatre, screen and performance arts and design ...
where her first work was a prize-winning series of narrative paintings including flower images. She subsequently studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England.
It offers further and higher education courses in fine art, graphic design, interior design, prod ...
.
Career
Self specializes in often monumentaloil painting
Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
s of flowers. From 2001 to 2003 she painted in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...
, where she was artist-in-residence in the Marianne North studio. She has since lectured at Wimbledon and at the Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
.
In 2004, she created a painting of the private garden of the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...
in Northern India
North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...
during a residency of three months between 2004–2005. A. S. Byatt
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy (; 24 August 1936 – 16 November 2023), known professionally by her former married name, A.S. Byatt ( ), was an English critic, novelist, poet and short-story writer. Her books have been translated into more than thirt ...
summarised the experience of this show with flowers as a combination of toughness and fragility, quoting Shakespeare: "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea / whose action is no stronger than a flower?"Petal PowerAS Byatt, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', 30 November 2005.
In 2006–2007 Self worked at night from the steps of Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
painting the river Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...
.
Her works appear in collections including those of Arthur Andersen, London, John Brown Publishing
John Brown Media is one of the world's largest content marketing agencies. It was bought by Dentsu Aegis in May 2015. While originally formed as a magazine company, the company creates multichannel content for various brands, with services incl ...
, Schroder Investment Management, Accenture
Accenture plc is a global multinational professional services company originating in the United States and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, that specializes in information technology (IT) services and management consulting. It was founded in 1 ...
, J Sainsbury plc
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK ...
, Westdeutsche Landesbank, London, and the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire.
She is currently represented by Browse and Darby of London.
Bibliography
* *References
External links
Official Jo Self web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self, Jo 1956 births Living people 20th-century English painters 21st-century English painters 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art English women painters English flower artists Jo