REVELLIOUS
Make a friend of doubt 1&2 were included in the group exhibition Revellious curated by Liv Pennington and Kate Knight.
Studio 12 presented
’Every Second that I’m Alive’ Curated by Tamara Al-Mashouk in October 2025
For 41 years Joanna Jones painted with her body. The work is always large scale and about contact – about the exact moment in which her skin touches canvas, moving her egg tempera in plumes around her limbs, her belly, catching the edges of her knees and elbows. It’s about everything she brings with her, within her body to that very specific moment.
It happens so fast you’d almost miss it if you were watching– but you wouldn’t be. Jones always paints in private, it’s not performative work. It’s work that is made with her body because that is the place that carries all of her information, all of her life force.
In 2024 Jones was diagnosed with an illness that debilitated her ability to get down onto the canvases she stretched on the floor of her studio. But she is a person with an unquenchable thirst to think through, to create, to move. And so she started talking to herself, recording voice notes where she moved through a lifetime of memory retained in a body that was transforming.
These voice notes, never intended to be shared, are the pillar and provide the namesake of Joanna Jones’ solo: Every Second that I’m Alive.
Every Second that I’m Alive’ sound piece.
On July 5th 2025 at 11am, The Deal Music and Arts Coastlines festival presented a musical morning in the home of artist Joanna Jones.
»I feel you feeling me« Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Grolmannstr.28, 10623 Berlin Germany
October 12th – November 23rd 2024
The exhibition is accompanied by a monographic catalog of the artist, published by Edition Galerie Gilla Lörcher in 2023. ISBN: 978-3-00-075087-8
Shocked into Presence, The Citadel in Dover. September 2nd – 24th 2023. An exhibition of 30 paintings, spanning 40 years curated by artist Nicolas Deshayes as part of You can reach the world from Dover 2023 Festival. Exhibition text by Nicholas Deshayes and work list
Simon Bill response: Shocked into Presence Simon Bill
New composition by Mihailo Trandafilovski inspired by my 2020 ‘I brought something with me’ series. Premiered on July 15th at the Deal Festival at Lindon Hall Studios as part of a Salon with Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Malene Skaerved and Mihailo Trandafilovski.
Delighted to have artwork on the cover of Mihailo Trandafilovski’s latest CD Polychromy
We have just re-released Re-veil-Le the work I made to Mihailo Trandafilovski’s ‘Diptych’ – Violin Concerto No2 in 2013
I was invited by the MAB (Milton Art Bank in Philadelphia US) to make a work on St Jerome in the Wilderness. MAB presented St. Jerome in the Wilderness in Milton from October 20th 2022 – January 21st 2023. For this exhibition, eight contemporary artists–Susanna Coffey, Don Joint, Joanna Jones, Eddy Lopez, Mark Mahosky, Deborah Rosenthal, Benjamin Stieler, and Evelyn Twitchell–were tasked with looking at and responding to historical representations of St. Jerome in the wilderness. The resulting works are presented at MAB alongside a selection of original historical examples of St. Jerome by Ludovico Carracci, Jean Antoine Constantin, Gerard David, Guercino, Claude Lorraine, Giovanni di Rimini, Titian, and Paolo Uccello.
Research into St Jerome led me to become aware of the role of the Early Church fathers, of which Jerome was one, and the consequences for codes of conduct for women, specifically interesting those codes of conduct, concerning the body which still largely operate today:
JONES St Jerome October 2022
A filmic collaborative tribute to Seven Samurai: Drawings by Clare Smith and Joanna Jones, Sound by Gabor Stark, Edited by Clare Smith, Title Graphics by Edda Salander Jones.
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Galerie Gilla Lörcher, POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair 2022/ Flughafen Tempelhof September 15th -18th
Simone Strasser, Joanna Jones, Iris Musolf, Claudia Zweifel
IT CUT THROUGH BLOOD
It cut through blood refers to the energy of e-motion as it dances with the hum of existence.
Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin, Germany 29th April – 10th June 2022
CANTIUM ARTS – PRISON UNLOCKED
Cantium Arts, musicians and composers Anna Phoebe and Richard Bundy were commissioned for the Dove Arts Development Digital festival to work on a new video & audio work. Connection / Interaction / Movement inform this collaborative work, with contributions from artists Mark McGuire, Gabor Stark, Joanna Jones, Edda Salander-Jones, Danny Burrows, Clare Smith, Chloe Lamford, Charles Holland, Malgosia Lonsdale, Skyla Bridges, Barry O’Brien, Paul Chaplin and Paul Cheneour presented in an online Instagram gallery over the six months of the festival and culminating in this major new composition.
I made a piece of work to Salena Godden’s words for Prison Unlocked curated by Anna Phoebe and Richard Bundy on December 10th 2021at the former immigration Removal Centre in Dover.
TURNER CONTEMPORARY OPEN 23rd October 2021 – 20th February 2022
I brought something with me #7 very pleased to have been part of such an exciting show.
MAKE THE WAVE – The seas are rising
Vigil Shakespeare Beach Dover on Thursday June 10th 2021.
The Vigil was part of MAKE THE WAVE, a mass of local actions taking place around the coast of the UK to reach Cornwall for the G7 Summit.
A ‘movement of movements’, by those concerned with the Climate Crisis and Sea Level Rise.
After collecting in the Market Square at 6.30 pm.we walked down Snargate Street, crossing over the road near the Grand Shaft Entrance and continuing to Shakespeare Beach over the bridge.
Reflecting individualism within the solidarity of a collective wave everyone was asked to dress in their own blue clothes.
KENT CREATIVE MEET-UP February 26th 2021
Joanna Jones: Egg Tempera and other things
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Hello World is a Global Internet Art Exhibition featuring artists and cultural venues from 70 countries. This global showcase launches on June 20, 2020 – the summer/winter solstice,
Participating venues
Participating artists
Thank you South London Museum for hosting me. https://southlondonmuseum.com/news/
Hello world entry under painting
I am bringing something with me: paintings from lockdown March – May 2020
During a night walk I thought about your art.
The body’s intimate touch of the canvas, as happens with your paintings, and what kind of utopia this gesture suddenly carries with it in this time of the virus. An intimacy we cannot allow ourselves any longer!
How wonderful that art still embodies perspectives and visions that help us through the many toils of everyday life and even catastrophes.
Bei einem Nachtspaziergang habe ich nachgedacht über deine Kunst. Die intime Berührung des Körpers mit der Leinwand, wie das auf deinen Bildern geschieht, und welche Utopie diese Geste im Zeichen des Virus nun auf einmal in sich trägt. Eine Intimität die wir uns plötzlich nicht einmal mehr in Ansätzen erlauben dürfen!
Wie schön dass die Kunst immer noch Aussichten und Visionen in sich trägt die uns über viele Beschwerden des Alltags und selbst der Katastrophen hilft.
Walter Gramming
Renée Pfister featured these paintings in her June 2020 ‘Artist in focus’ newsletter
US3 studios video MOON TALK
Commissioned by SALT Festival for the sea and the Enviroment
Premiered at the Quarterhouse in Folkestone
Links to the Salt Triolgy; Parable for Endeavour, No Horizon and Moon Talk and more information on
US3, Clare Smith Helen Lindon and Joanna Jones, here
Joanna Jones and Alma Tischlerwood : Moon Body (egg tempera on canvas) and Mars (ceramic) their paired work.
Joanna Jones
Beauty treads a razor edge
26 April –28 June 2019
Gallery Weekend Opening: Fri 26 April 2019 at 6pm
Opening hours during Gallery Weekend: Fri 3-9 pm, Sat 11 am – 8 pm, Sun 11 am – 6 pm
Galerie Gilla Lörcher | Contemporary Art is excited and very proud to enrich the Gallery Weekend 2019 season with a solo exhibition of British painter Joanna Jones. On view: colourful abstract paintings with gorgeous compositions and executed in a most masterly manner.
Artist statement: Beauty treads a razor edge
„Let the bitter be bitter and the sweet be sweet until the bitter and the sweet become one. These words, that I first heard spoken by activist and mystic Jim O’Dea, stayed with me during the 16 month period in which I made these paintings. I paint using a performative process that positions my body as an agency of a particular kind of knowing, taking painting into the territory of an event – a constitution of elements that make something happen: the consistency of the paint, my choice of colour, what concerns my mind, what vibrates through my body, what rings in my ears. Alexander Kluge said that the only thing that we own is ourselves – it’s true but there is nothing to which we are not connected.“ Joanna Jones March 2019
Joanna Jones
Beauty treads a razor edge
26. April –28. June 2019
Gallery Weeknd Vernissage: Fr 26. April 2019 ab 18 Uhr
Öffnungszeiten während des Gallery Weekend: Fr 15-21 Uhr, Sa 11-20 Uhr, So 11 – 18 Uhr
Galerie Gilla Lörcher | Contemporary Art freut sich sehr, das Gallery Weekend 2019 mit einer Solo-Ausstellung der britischen Malerin Joanna Jones zu bereichern. Zu sehen sind farbintensive abstrakte und so unglaublich meisterlich gemalte Bilder, deren sehr lebendig wirkende Kompositionen den Betrachter in ihren Bann ziehen.
Die Künstlerin schreibt über ihrer Ausstellung: Beauty treads a razor edge
„Möge das Bittere bitter und das Süße süß sein bis das Bittere und das Süße zu Einem werden. Diese Worte von Aktivist Jim O´Dea begleiteten mich während der 16-monatigen Entstehungsphase dieser Bilder. Ich nutze einen performativen Prozess in meiner Malerei, indem ich meinen Körper als Medium einsetze und Malerei so auf die Ebene des Ereignishaften bringe. Die Beschaffenheit aller Elemente bewirken letztlich was passiert: Die Konsistenz des Malmaterials, meine Farbauswahl, womit ich mich beschäftige, was mir gerade durch den Köper vibriert und was mir in den Ohren klingt. Alexander Kluge sagt, dass das Einzige das uns gehört, wir selber sind – das stimmt, aber es gibt nichts, mit dem wir nicht verbunden sind.“ Joanna Jones im März 2019
I belong here as much as anywhere
I came to Dalby Forest in February 2018excited by the symposium but very unclear how I could work with the forest.
After some time in the forest I surprised myself by feeling less “other” or “separate” and increasingly experiencing a sense of belonging: the growth rings of the trees marking time and change, and all life forms resilient and on constant alert in their mission to survive.
My work is existential, my paintings are not ‘about’ something but created by an action and that action is mediated from and with my own body. These paintings are inspired by my feeling of solidarity with the individual components that make up the forest, that strive to reproduce and adapt to survive within the ‘mighty’ schemes that attempt to manage them; their vulnerability and resilience leading me to am empathetic recognition that I belong here as much as anywhere.
NO HORIZON
Joanna Jones, Helen Lindon and Clare Smith
Commissioned by Salt Festival of the Sea and the Environment 2018
Length – 30 min
Mastered by Marcus Bishop at Quantum Leap Studios
In No Horizon the artists start where they left off after their production for SALT 2016: ‘A parable for Endeavour’, continuing their conversation verbally and visually as they create a new moving image piece for SALT 2018. This time they are in Folkestone, making their way down the Escarpment from Wear Bay road. As the three figures stop to look out to sea, silhouetted against the light they are reminiscent of Gormley’s figures from Another time*. They then move off to occupy the space under Coronation Parade where one of Gormley’s figures was placed during the Folkestone 2017 Triennial.
Gormley’s figures are intended to “bear witness to what it is like to be alive and alone in space and time”. The three female figures we see in the film are actually alive and together in space and time: they set to work, actively look and record and feel, risk their footing on the slippery mossed concrete and stone surfaces and measure their work against the speed of the incoming tide.
Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin, Germany
Joanna Jones I Change
9. September – 20. Oktober 2017
Mi-Sa / Wed-Sat 13-18h und nach Vereinbarung / and by appointmentJoanna Jones’s practice over several decades has bridged painting and performance. Interested in the inter-connectedness of things, thoughts and encounters she has developed a performative process in painting that positions her body as an agency of a particular kind of knowing and takes painting into the territory of an event.
Further paintings by Joanna Jones are on view at the group show „Narration“ at Kühlhaus, Berlin, curated by Marianne Kapfer. Location: Kühlhaus, Berlin | 9.-18.09. Opening 8.9.,19 h | open daily from 13-18h, during Berlin Art Week extended opening hours: 12-19 h | Kühlhaus: Luckenwalder Str. 3, 10963 Berlin – next to the Art Berlin fair (14.-17.09.)
A Parable for Endeavour, 40 mins, Joanna Jones, Helen Lindon, Clare Smith, shot on location in Dover COMMISSIONED for SALT FESTIVALOF THE SEA AND ENVIRONMENT FOLKESTONE 29th September – October 2nd 2016
FUNNY, PHILOSOPHICAL, VISUALLY STIMULATING WITH AN EXTRAORDINARY SOUNDTRACK
a surprising and mind-fizzing film revealing the making of delicate and intriguing work.
A collaboration between shingle, brine, tide and three human beings’
One the best ‘ art’ films I’ve seen. Absolutely loved it.
The film was an amazing instruction in ego-less partnership, the harmony that was clearly present in the creative process was extraordinary.
A Parable for Endeavour is an exercise in succeeded co-authorship between three artists, a set of cameras, and the sea. Abstract expressionism without the Ego.
Joanna Jones’s practice over several decades has linked painting and performance often using moving image.
Interested in the inter-connectedness of things, thoughts and encounters she has developed a performative process that positions the body as an agency of a particular kind of knowing.
As well as painting she has pursued a variety of intentions THROUGH ART in different cultures and environments often working collaboratively with other artists. In 2006 she founded Dover Arts Development (DAD) with Clare Smith.
Six eyes see more than two add to that 5 camera eyes; and this collaboration resulted in more than the sum of its parts.
Working collaboratively can feel like a limit on ones own individuality as an artist but, in the right constellation, working with others can become a synergic process as was the case with the 3 of us when we first worked together in 2015.
Seen by the camera and unbeknown to 2 of us one camera eye watched as 3 artists set about the preparation for a performance in ‘A Parable of Endeavour’.
That became the performance that held interest way beyond the performance on the beach of the early part of the painting that was gently given over to the sea to continue a process of transformation by the movement of water controlled by the moon.
None of us had a conception of a final film we only knew that we would go down to the beach with paper and paints and various cameras and film.We had foreseen the destruction of the paper but had not pre-empted the return of the “wreck” to the shore.
The ‘laying out’ is captured with intention by a central camera giving way to individual shots captured from all parts of the project with the artists visible together in the bubbles in the sea in the last moments of the film.
Helen Lindon has been concerned with ecology and the environment since the 70’s. She is now making her work on the subject of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise.Her present practice investigates ideas of micro/ macro, her images could be of a larger universe or looking through a microscope – patterns and images are replicated in both. Natural materials – sea, rain water and carbon are used to make large scale drawings using tiny marks. These take hundreds of hours and become for the artist and viewer a contemplation on climate change.
While developing her art practice, she worked as an Associate Lecturer at Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martins and London College of Communication (all University of the Arts, London).
We embarked on a journey together – destination unknown.
Three artists who make very different art but whose artistic and philosophical connections are strong, we decided to make an experimental and performative art work using materials of and among the elements.
Starting with notions of climate change, erosion and migration, with space to work as individuals, we created a working atmosphere of trust, respect and equality where each action would encourage discussion about the way to proceed. Conversation, cooperation, development, trust and understanding, enjoying, valuing and using our differences were key, new ideas developed from actions, and the weather, the sea, the materials and the cameras became equal participants in the making of the work.
The final piece became a precious gift returned to us by the sea, urging us to question our place in the universe, contemplate infinity, fragility, space and scale and, ultimately the film became a metaphor for being an artist.
Helen Lindon
‘To see a world in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an Hour.’
William Blake
Clare Smith’s practice involves pattern, chance and process, often using strategies such as cutting, tearing gluing and stitching. Prevalent elements relate to trade, materials, craft and objects. Smith works with drawing, print media moving image and installation to investigate the tensions between identities and traditions informed by her Chinese/English heritage.
Smith has a playful, experimental and physical approach to generating work, which is combined with a reflective process in its development.
Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with Joanna Jones.
The film opens with a view of the beach and the “gate” in the distance. Voices off, 3 silhouetted protagonists trying to determine a straight line to the gate from a point higher up the beach:
“It’s so difficult to see”.
This film starts with a hilarious sequence, which on the serious flip side is about perspective, a theme which runs through the film: who is looking, where from and what at?
In ‘A Parable for Endeavour’, the gestures of work and industriousness and repeated attempts to get it right are presented seemingly for no real purpose. Why does it matter how the paper is placed? What image is going to be painted, if that is what these three artists are doing?
As the film progresses the paper becomes a metaphor for experience, going from its blank state, to becoming marked and stained – some of the marks cannot be washed off – then torn apart, the pieces then gathered up, brought back together, made whole and laid out to rest. “A lot has happened to these pieces in their lifetime”.
The artists as protagonists both behind and in front of the camera are seen to guide this piece of paper through its life, allowing processes to unfold, acting on them only to enable the story to emerge rather than to force it in a particular direction. As well as looking, they also hear, listen, heed each other, the sea, themselves.
Analogue Ensemble: The Body and Performance in Painting and Film
May 15th 2016 at the Ramsgate Music Hall
13 Turner Street
Ramsgate
CT11 8NJ
Doors open at 6.30pm films start at 7pm.
Analogue Ensemble is a new programme of live projected film and sound art, bringing together established and emerging artists and filmmakers from the UK and beyond to Ramsgate.
Featuring the work of Vicky Smith, Joanna Jones, and Deborah Humm, our third outing will be an evening of digital and live projected work exploring the interstices between painting, film, performance and the body.
About the artists
Vicky Smith has been practicing experimental animation for 25 years. Recent exhibitions include:16mm film Stacking at Alchemy Film Festival (2015); Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting: London Short Film Festival (2015); Cornerhouse Artist Film DVD ICA, London (2015); Explorative Sensoriums in Film and Video, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (2014); Bicycle Tyre Track in Assembly at Tate Britain (2014) and Exploding Cinema (2013). Recently published work includes Full Body Film in Sequence (2013) and presentation of research at Ghost Hostings: 13 at Central St.Martins.
Joanna Jones studied at the Byam Shaw School and the Royal Academy Schools receiving her NDD in painting from Goldsmith’s College and winning first prize in the Greater London Council’s painting competition London 1969 before graduating in 1970. She was co-founder of the London studio collective, The Works. In 1978 she moved to Germany establishing her practice both nationally and internationally before returning to the UK in 1997. In 2001 she managed a large-scale projection project on the White Cliffs of Dover, at Samphire Hoe, through a Year of the Artist Award from Arts Council England. Her work bridges painting and performance. The 2006 Pharos Foundation publication Joanna Jones included a conversation with art critic Guy Brett, entitled ‘Inside Out’, in which he said: ‘the inner light of your work goes beyond the problem of form, It represents pure energy’. Joanna extended her practice to the public realm co-founding Dover Arts Development Ltd (DAD) in 2006 with Clare Smith.
Deborah Humm investigates the internal nervous system’s communication method, focusing on (mis)communication between brain and body which results in profound, perplexing and random external manifestations. Heightening the awareness of this to others through poetry in motion, performance and recordings which come together to create experimental digital and 16mm film installations.
Header image from ‘La Mer – from Hokusai to Courbet’ by Joanna Jones
La Mer – from Hokusai to Courbet
As a small child I spent hours in the sea – I was buoyant with goggles, snorkel and frog feet and could see everything clearly. I became part of a world of underwater plants, fish, dark caverns, patterns and colours luminous where the sun broke through. I could affect this life: I could create waves, darken an area with my own shadow, and intersperse collections of tiny fish and move fast if “Portuguese men of war” appeared. That experience has wound its way into my painting practice, in the way I move colour, connect with the canvas and physically inhabit the world of my painting.
The 2015 film workcharts the transformation of the forms and structures of a painting developing over twenty-four painting actions in a 25-minute film. The evolution of the fluid egg tempera painting accompanies the 2012 interpretation of Debussy’s La Mer, in three movements, by Sally Beamish for the Trio Apaches. The film is made together with filmmaker Dominic de Vere.