About

Jo Saurin is a painter working in Somerset, UK and in Liguria, Italy. She is interested in the whole concept of connectivity, so her work is usually more about her spontaneous emotional response to a subject and environment than visual realism.

Her paintings are created with music as inspiration alongside the visual subject matter she is responding to. Bach, jazz and the blues are favourites. Her recent work is a series of responses to Renaissance paintings that she knows well from her training in History of Art and teaching the subject for many years. Other work starts with paintings produced while physically moving (by car, boat or on foot) sometimes using a portable drawing board and long scrolls of paper. Deliberately enigmatic paintings are developed in the studio from these beginnings so that the viewer is drawn into a space that feels new and exciting yet vaguely familiar. She favours acrylic paint for its quick drying properties, but also uses oil on canvas. Other work is made with mixed media and collage on canvas and plywood as well as paper and sometimes on cleaved olive wood.

Jo was born in Aberdeen, Scotland; emigrated to Australia in 1971; moved to Italy in 1991; and returned to the UK in 1996.

QUALIFICATIONS

2012 MFA (painting) Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University

1985 MA, History of 16th Century European Architecture, Courtauld Institute, London

1982, BA History of Art, 1st class honours, Sydney University

AWARDS

1988 Italian Government scholarship for post graduate research in Italy

1983 Australian Government scholarship to research MA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2015 Dissolving Boundaries, Art Bermondsey, Bermondsey Street, London SE1

2015 Limb, at 44AD Artspace, Bath

RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020 Material World, 44AD Artspace, Bath

2019 Drawn In, Bridport Art Centre, Bridport Dorset

2018 Blooming Contradictions, Eype, Dorset

2018 Dorset Art Weeks, Vida Comida, Sherborne

2017 Accent, 44AD Artspace, Bath

2016 Bath Open Art Prize, Fringe Arts Bath

2016 Waiting Room, 44AD, Bath

2014‘ It Was Amazing’, 44AD Artspace, Fringe Arts Bath

2014 ‘Recollection’, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton

2013 ‘Beyond Memory’, Fringe Arts Bath, Bath

2013 ‘On the Edge’, Eype Chapel Gallery,Dorset

2013 Encounters: Wessex Contemporary Artists meet Dorset County Museum, Dorset County Museum, Dorchester

2013 A Place of Departure, 44AD artspace, Bath

2013 MA AD, MFA Graduates 6 Months On, Walcot Chapel, Bath

2013 H2O, 44AD artspace, Bath

2012 Please do not bang or open the cages, 44AD artspace, Bath

2012 MFA Graduation exhibition , Bath School of Art and Design

2011 Places and Spaces ,Town Mill, Lyme Regis, Dorset

2011 Journey , Salisbury Library

2010 Lookout , Portland Arts Centre, Dorset

2009 Pinpointing Portland , Salisbury Library

2009 Courtauld Artists ,The Arts Club, Dover St, London

2008 Pinpointing Portland , Rooke Lane Chapel, Frome

2008 WESCA group show , Slade Centre, Gillingham

2008 In Disguise , Slade Centre, Gillingham

2008 Summer Exhibition , Atkinson Gallery, Street, Somerset

2007 Senses , Walford Mill

2006 Senses , Sherborne House

2005 MaleFemale , Sherborne House

2004 Visual Chemistry , Sherborne House