Jo Davis is a visual artist based in Lancaster, PA. Her intuitive approach to art-making prioritizes process over product, embracing experimentation and discovery. Although the methods and media Jo uses have changed over the years, her intuitive process-driven approach has remained the same. Early in her career the paintings were pure expression with an emerging visual vocabulary.
In her mid-twenties, following the loss of her family in a plane crash, the work became more contemplative and internal. Reverence for nature's echoes and the pain of loss and longing became deeply entrenched in her work. Her ongoing fascination with science, spirituality, and the Absolute continues to inform her work today, and her practice remains a source of infinite discovery.
Jo earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and her work has been shaped by a career of continuous exploration of methods and materials through multidisciplinary practices. All along, painting remains a throughline. Beyond Pennsylvania, Jo has exhibited in galleries in New York City, San Francisco, and Panama City. Her work was featured on the cover of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Issue 16, and she was a finalist for the El Prisma de la Vida design competition at the Biomuseo in Panama City, Panama. She recently completed an artist residency at EyStudio! Madrid.
Statement
My paintings are internal/external landscapes. Each one is an effort to depict the ineffable and unseen, articulating consciousness, driven by the process and in collaboration with the medium. I believe it is the artist’s role to pinpoint moments of beauty as an entry point to deeper intelligence. My exploration of the mysterious interconnectedness is an act of activism. The practice is a spiritual intervention in a world increasingly dominated by rigid structures and inhumane ideals.