Jo Holdsworth On Sale

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.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.