Jo Holdsworth

Totality by Jo Holdsworth abstract contemporary painting

2021

Jo Holdsworth is inspired by London’s ever-changing urban landscape. Responding to observations made during time spent in the capital, Holdsworth’s paintings draw from the pace and rhythm of everyday life.

Born near Manchester into a musical and artistic household, Holdsworth's fascination with the movement and behaviour of crowds stems from the paintings of L.S. Lowry whose work she was introduced to at a young age by Lowry protégé and family friend, Pat Cooke. Other influences include early Twentieth-Century photography as well as the American realist painters George Bellows and Edward Hopper. Holdsworth cites first seeing Paul Strand’s photograph, Wall Street, 1915, as a pivotal moment, confirming to her the role of artist as onlooker.

Often depicting transitional places like city squares, high street footpaths and railway stations, Holdsworth is drawn to the individual in the crowd and the relationships between figures and the spaces they occupy. Her paintings combine a modernist approach to form with an almost romantic sensibility, combining a cinematic palette with loose, spontaneous brush work. Holdsworth's work also includes wistful and enigmatic seascapes with figures reflected in the water at low tide. Often centred around themes of hope and truthfulness, Jo's paintings aim to initiate a dialogue with the viewer and to create strong feelings of unity and togetherness. She interprets the figure in long elongated silhouettes, populating her canvases with these anonymous denizens of modernity, to produce images which capture a modern yet romantic sensibility.

Jo Holdsworth’s highly successful Solo Show ‘Reflective Figures’ took place at the 508 Gallery in Chelsea, London in November 2021 and she was also recently selected as one of 30 best selling international artists for the Affordable Art Fair’s Summer Exhibition and featured in their blog post called “Five Artists You Need to Know.” She was also awarded the Royal Arts Prize Visitors' Choice Award and her show was presented at the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery, Pall Mall, London in March 2020.

Her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London, NoonPowell Gallery (2021), 'Love Life', Ad Lib Gallery, Wimbledon, London (2021), 'Positive Blues' Bils & Rye, Harrogate (2021), 'Visual Variations: Figurative to Abstract', NoonPowell Gallery, Notting Hill, London (2020); Christmas Exhibition, NoonPowell Gallery, Notting Hill, London (2020); Royal Arts Prize Visitors' Choice Award Show, Royal Opera Arcade Gallery, London (2020); Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London, (2020); Art for Youth London, Mall Galleries, London (2019); Affordable Art Fair - Hampstead, London, NoonPowell Gallery (2019); Fresh Art Fair, Cheltenham, NoonPowell Gallery(2019); Street Figures, 508 Gallery, London (2019); Viewing Figures, Norman Plastow Gallery, London (2019); Royal Art Prize, Royal Opera Arcade Gallery and La Galleria, London (2019); People and Places, Norman Plastow Gallery, London (2018); Far from the Madding Crowd, Menier Gallery, London (2018); The Sound of Art, The Sound Lounge, London (2018). Jo Holdsworth currently lives and works in London.