Jo Self née Lee (born January 15, 1956) is an English contemporary artist, poet who specialises in often monumental oil paintings of flowers. In 2001-3 she painted in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where she was artist-in-residence in the Marianne North studio.
Contents |
Self was born and grew up on a Hertfordshire rural housing estate.[1] After the birth of her first child she trained at Wimbledon School of Art where her first, prizewinning, work was a series of narrative paintings including flower images. She subsequently studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design. She has since lectured at Wimbledon and at the Slade School of Fine Art.[1]
She painted the private garden of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Northern India during a residency of three months between 2004-5. A. S. Byatt summarised the experience of this show—flowers' combination of toughness and fragility—with the Shakespeare quote: "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea / whose action is no stronger than a flower?"[2]
In 2006-7 Jo Self worked at night from the steps of Tate Britain painting the Thames.
Her works appear in collections including those of Arthur Andersen, London, John Brown Publishing, Schroder Investment Management, Accenture, J Sainsbury plc, Westdeutsche Landesbank, London, and the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire.[1]
Self has said her influences include the 20th century American painter Mark Rothko, and Japanese woodblock printing from the 16th century to the 19th century, masters of art who consciously modify and distort natural forms.
She is dyslexic,[1][3] and has referred to this as integral to her art: "Dyslexia goes with talent. I'm very visual. It's like I've got less of something and more of something else, so it's a gift actually." [3]