Clotted water (acrylic and ink on canvas)

Jo Hathaway about her work:

“Seamus Heaney wrote: ‘Between my finger and thumb/the squat pen rests/I’ll dig with it’ – I think this is what I try to do with a brush.

I am an artist and writer. These two descriptive and expressive elements inform each other in the way I approach and process my work. My paintings are a means of expressing my reactions to or interpretation of words, people and places. I work in oils, acrylics, watercolours and inks – on anything from a tiny to a very large scale.

My hope is to produce work that slows the viewer, and provides an image and an idea that stays with them and carries them away from the real for a while, back to a memory or a daydream.

Storm sea I (Textured watercolour on paper)

The process
I draw and mark make every day – working on realistic as well as fantastical illustrations for commissions, drawing from life and landscape, and making more abstract sketches.

Each painting is different and has its own story. I usually start with a piece of writing – from a novel or poem or a quote from a newspaper. This guides me as to where to go and sketch and study. Then I think my way through, illustrating those thoughts with an image, be it abstract or more realistic.

With every picture or series of pictures I work within a decided and deliberate palette, trying to look at my subject from different angles, but within a similar colour range.  I gather together different kinds of painting within a theme and palette.

Sunlit absence (Oil and gold leaf on panel)

I hope to produce work which will sit with people in their houses and become part of their home.”

Artist’s page: http://www.johathaway.com/

Gallery40 40 Gloucester Road, North Laine, Brighton BN1 4AQ