Jo Ball
My practice moves between painting, three-dimensional drawing and writing, with each informing and responding to the other. Over the last two years, my work has shifted towards painting. I am currently making abstract, colourful works using oils on paper combined with screenprinted elements. Memories of flowers and plants are a starting point for my use of colour, which develops through the physical process of mixing, layering and applying paint. Alongside these works on paper, I create linear clay forms — hooked lines and loops — that exist as works in their own right, while also generating projected shadows that become starting points for new painted compositions.
I am interested in how forms shift through different materials, processes and ways of looking. The work develops through experimentation, allowing colour, shape and unexpected outcomes to guide the making process. My writing, often taking the form of fragmented observations, dreams and reflections, emerges from the same attention that shapes my visual work — to the allotment, birds, family life and the small details of daily experience.
Lived Experience
Alongside being an artist, I work as a gardener and am also a mother. All these experiences feed into my writing and visual practice, shaping the way I observe and respond to the world around me.
I’m autistic, and am drawn to patterns, small details and repetitive making processes. These ways of seeing naturally influence the materials, forms and approaches within my practice.
JO BALL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Many leaves turn Studio Kind, Barnstaple, Devon
2023 After Winter Hours Gallery, Bristol
2012 In the Course of Arrangement Hartington Road, London
2011 Soft Geometry The Woodmill Project Space, London
2009 Kit of Parts Mid Pennine Gallery, Burnley
2008 Twilight Point (MFA Show) Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Imbolc The Corridor, Spike Island, Bristol
2025 A Gathering ACE Arts, Somerton, Somerset
2024 A Gathering APT Gallery, Deptford, London
2022 Nature, our environment Kingshill House, Gloucestershire
2017 Drawn Royal West Academy, Bristol
2017 Impulses Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada
2016 Ropewalkers OSR Projects, West Coker, Somerset
2013 Florence Trust Summer Show The Florence Trust, London
Rushing to Paradise The Royal Standard, Liverpool
COMMISSIONS
2023 One Thousand Flowers. Public planting of 1000 spring bulbs at Mangotsfield Folly.
2022 The Verge - Urban sculpture park in Glasgow. Invited by artist Mary Redmond.
2017 Shortlisted for Jerwood Makers 2017
2016 Brief Patches of Blue Sky. Participatory growing flax with OSR Projects, Somerset, UK.
GRANTS & AWARDS
2026 a-n bursary for research & development of writing within visual art practice
2025 Eaton Funding for research & development of new work
2024 Gane Trust award for presentation of exhibition
2021 DYCP Arts Council Grant for research & development of new work
2015 Visual Arts South West Mentoring Scheme (with Blair Todd, Newlyn Gallery)
2009 Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust
2005-2007 Commonwealth Scholarship. MFA Studio Arts, Concordia University, Montreal
RESIDENCIES
2023 Mawddach Residency Snowdonia, Wales, UK
2017 Transition Residency Newlyn Art Gallery, UK
2012-2013 Florence Trust Residency The Florence Trust, London, UK
2012 Residency (with Joanne Greenbaum) Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida
2008 New Works: Materials & Process The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada
EDUCATION
2005-2008 MFA Studio Arts, Fibres Concordia University, Montreal
1998-2002 BA Hons Fine Art, Tapestry Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland
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