Jo Hummel
Painting
Biography
Human habits and social behaviour inform an improvised process which combines collage, painting, and installation.
I set out with a phenomenological approach to making works in an attempt to understand states of anxiety and serenity in the realms of spontaneous decision making and pre determined systems. I run experiments where the process often determines the outcome and provides a safe arena for improvisation, a place where rational procedures can co- exist alongside intuition.
Practices such as the manufacture of certain motifs, utilisation of modular grid systems and the employment of repetition are borrowed from nature and industry to create a more self-effacing visual vocabulary which is governed in part by a set of rules as opposed to human authorship. Repetition and pattern is something that has developed instinctively as a way of eliminating anxiety from my studio practice. Its nature is cyclic and oscillates between order and disorder, uncertainty overpowering certainty and vice versa.
Jo Hummel studied at Kingston University London 2001-2004 and Royal College of Art London 2004-2006. Recent solo exhibitions include Artist in Residence, Saatchi Art Lounge, during Frieze Week London 2017, joint solo Deep End Echo Sid Motion Gallery and Porcelain and Paper, CAA Gallery London during London Crafts Week 2016. Her work has been included in satellite exhibition Afternoon Teaat the 53rd Venice Biennale with WW Gallery London, Jerwood Drawing Prize London 2012 and RA Summer Exhibition London and London Art Fair 2019. Joanne was long listed for the Beers London Contemporary Visions exhibition and John Moores Painting Prize 2018, and also in recent years received a number of Arts Council Grants for the Arts awards for temporary installations and research residencies. Works by Jo Hummel are included in both public and private collections and she has a growing international collector base. Her work was featured in the Observer newspaper in an article titled ‘‘Next Generation turns its back on Emin and Hirst’s conceptual artworks’ May 2011, and ‘Picking up a Picasso is one click away’ in the Times August 2013.
