It was great to see talented local artist Joanne Duffy featured in The Post Newspapers recently. Jo showcased her work at March Upmarket and is one of the artists who will be featured at the new Art Upmarket event in August.
Read her story below:
Mt Claremont award-winning artist Jo Duffy draws inspiration for her unique paintings from the diverse landscapes around WA and has successfully turned her passion into her fulltime career. In the early years of running her arts practice Jo balanced commitments to her young family and volunteering. Her rising success over time has come through private sales and art awards, representation by The Studio Gallery and Gallery 360 and successful exhibitions on the east coast including a recent show at Rochfort Gallery in North Sydney.
Jo said that her childhood, spent living in the wheatbelt and traveling with her family around north and central WA, gave her a great love of the State’s colourful landscapes which continue to inspire her.
“The sights, sounds and smells of the midwest are always so familiar and bring on such a wave of nostalgia – I love the vast array of colour through all parts of the calendar, and our big skies and weather,” she said, “An expressionist at heart, key inspirations for my work lie in interpreting the emotional response to memories of landscape, and how this effects our character. The native flora and ancient landscapes are strong stimuli for investigating our senses’ response through colour, texture and movement.”
Jo said that art is a form of individual self-expression, for her a “visual conversation”, which is what makes it so unique. “I work to stay true to my processes and direction and what results is me! My works are my interpretation and transfer of emotions of the world around me.”
Jo said that she has a few favourite pieces but there is one she has had to keep – “Lost Territory”, a finalist in the Broken Hill Outback Art Prize and her first to be selected in an interstate art prize. “It is a bit of a turning point in style and intent and could be a piece I painted yesterday but was painted in 2009 – a very dark and moody piece but I still love it,” she said.
Learn more about Jo Duffy at Art Upmarket here.