April 11th 2024

We are delighted to show a number of works on paper by Jo Lewis in Padstow this month, and are rather hoping, in future, to lure her here to make some work about the Camel Estuary…..

Here is an introduction to the works, by the artist, about her inspiration, working methods and the starting points for the two series we have on show, the Le Lac and Flow Series (please go to the Studio Artists page to view a full list, images and information).

Jo Lewis is a South London-based artist who works in ink and watercolour on paper. Her practice is primarily concerned with movement, natural processes and stasis. Working often in places where movement is most acute like in rivers, the sea and lakes, as well as in her studio, Jo makes works on paper, leporello books and paper sculptures. Her chosen materials- watercolour and ink- are humble and honest, and have been associated for centuries with those who work outside, as well as with the acts of recording and calligraphy.

“I like the stillness of Nature…stillness full of the tremors of life” Victor Pasmore

At its core, her work can be seen as positioning herself as a conduit between a natural process (for example, the movement of water in a river) and the pigment on paper, and through this minimal intervention, allowing the drawing to ‘make itself’ or reveal itself onto paper in the liquidity of the ink. In doing so, Jo’s methodology often involves the removal of the hand of the artist from the final piece, and a process of 'revealing' more than representation. 

Discussing her practice, Jo says, “For me, to embark on a drawing is to embark on a conversation with place. Water has a crystalline and spontaneous responsiveness. It takes shape according to whatever it encounters and demands the same of me. The water, the rocks, and I, we are all in process, an affirmation  of “the pulsations of the invisible in which all things are soaked.”  Francois Cheng

Jo typically works in series, often named by the place in which the drawings were created or the process by which they were created (e.g. Breath, River Li, La Confluence), allowing her to track the uniqueness of each encounter. The serialisation- whether it is in books or works on paper- observes and announces these differences.

Le Lac Series

John Berger asked,“Could we think of drawings as eddies on the surface of the stream of time?”

These drawings were made on the shoreline of a mountain lake, quite simply I was using as few drops of ink as possible dropped on the incoming lapping water, to chart the ever changing place of meeting of the water and shore.

The excitement for me is how this ‘serialisation’ announces the difference and uniqueness of each encounter. And it is this constant transformation that the fact of drawing brings me to notice. Ink, the most humble of mediums, reveals each point of interaction.

John Berger talked about drawing as an urgent activity, He said, “To draw is not only to put down, it’s also to receive.”. It is only in the doing of drawing that I can discover what it is I am supposed to do.

Artist Pierrette Bloch describes this process of drawing beautifully, She says, “ I embark on a long journey on a sheet of paper. I wrap myself in its path. It is no longer a surface of paper, but an adventure in time, the format of which no longer exists and will only reappear when it is finished.”

Flow Series

The starting point of this series was dots of ink and watercolour placed on the paper before submerging the paper in the flow of a fast moving mountain stream. The two different mediums resited and departed in different ways. With the original site of ‘departure’, the dots, still visible, the drawing is also the ‘landing’ of the fluid ink and watercolour. What excites me is the visualisation of someting that I could neither imagine nor draw otherwise. It exists entirely from a collabration. Each drawing contains the excitement of this reveal.

Jo lewis, March 2024