Scottish artist Joanna Wilson is hidden in plain sight, and she prefers it that way. Now featured by the curators at Saatchi, all that could be about to change.
To be selected for feature by Saatchi Art is no small feat among a saturated market of 100,000+ artists from around the world. But within weeks of uploading her profile, that is precisely how little-known figurative-abstract artist Joanna Wilson was plucked from obscurity to take centre-stage on the industry's leading online art platform.
Born and raised in Grantown-on-Spey, there is a lilting quality to Wilson's handling of form reminiscent of the glens where she grew up. But her figurative compositions often incorporate decorative elements too, which seem to reference the industrial environs of Edinburgh and London, where she has also lived and worked as an artist.
The recipient of numerous prizes and scholarships — including one to Yale University as part of her BA (Hons) in Fine Art — Wilson's exceptional talent is undeniable. Cartographical lines, organic shapes, monochrome sketches with colourful painted overlays: her art is a paradox of thoughtful drawing and exuberant expressionism. What it has not been, hitherto, is discoverable.
Not many people in her hometown know she exists. Those who do are apt to ask if she has been letting her kids loose with the paints again: a joke that has been made at the expense of every 'modern' artist since Matisse. And yet, she carries on doing what she has always done — 'blinkers on, minding my own business' — because art is not optional for her. Art is her purpose.
Wilson's hideaway studio in the Scottish Highlands is filled with literally thousands of individual art works: floor-to-ceiling abstracted figures that seem to leap from her fingertips and dance across the walls.
'In 2022 we are all walking this line: the same technology that keeps us apart also closes the gap.' — Joanna Wilson
As a female artist and mother of four, the pandemic — and the consequent pivot online — led to less time for herself, and yet more creative opportunity for her art. Alone in her studio, suddenly she found she could attend the life drawing sessions she had long since forsaken as her family's primary caregiver.
'My process creates a conscious dialogue between the here-and-now, i.e. the physical touch of conventional mixed media; and the anywhere-and-whenever, i.e. the cyberspatial context of digital art,' explains Wilson. 'In 2022 we are all walking this line: the same technology that keeps us apart also closes the gap.'
We see this play out in so many of her recent pictures.
During and since the COVID lockdowns, Wilson’s practice of drawing from life shifted into a virtual space. Working from live projections in her studio, she sketches models she knows intimately but has never met. Isolation and familiarity, distance and high-definition, a celebration of the technology that brings us together yet at the same time a yearning for the way things used to be — these are the forces at work in her pictures of the pandemic years.
Works such as Platinum Lady (above) epitomise this tussle between humanity and technology. In this mixed media painting, completely open spaces function like islands of optical calm. Lapping these shores is a sea of intersecting lines and organic shapes. Surveying the depth, we can see freeform figurative contours floating among that familiar digital checkerboard of transparent pixels.
This picture space shows that every step of Wilson's process leaves its trace on the final work, from life drawing to digital manipulation to expressionism in mixed media. Rich in layers of varying opacity and her favourite vibrant red, this picture space is a visual representation of time elapsed that reveals itself gradually to the viewer.
We see the undulating lines of rivers in spate and lochs formed by the pooling of pigment.
Meanwhile, other pieces feature a stronger sense of people and place: the craggy outline of the Cromdales that Wilson can see from her window, the music she listens to while she works and the ‘virtual’ models she draws from live projections in her studio.
In images like The Piano Lesson (below) we see traces of Scotland's rich musical heritage in the rhythmical cross-hatching and intuitive selection of colour. We see the undulating lines of rivers in spate and lochs formed by the pooling of pigment. And above all we see an animated tension between the human figure in all its imperfection and the natural world it inhabits.
The Piano Lesson exhibited and sold last month at the new Spey Bank Studio's Creative Capital show. Wilson was surprised to learn that her buyer lived locally ('I popped in to see if there had been any complaints, not to see if anyone had bought one!'). But the far bigger surprise was the thriving local community of creatives that this exhibition unearthed.
Perhaps the problem — if you can call it that — is the immense natural beauty of the Cairngorms.
Plain for all to see, the majesty of the area's mountains and lochs has become its only selling point. And yet hidden in plain sight — or rather, rendered invisible by this blinding magnificence — are artists like Joanna Wilson. World-class, and now world-renowned too.
'An artist is an explorer.' — Henri Matisse
The next time you come to Loch Morlich for some wild swimming, why not also dip a toe in a painting like Sunset Swim (above)? As with any polar plunge you might be startled at first. But the jolt to the system — that surge of something completely different — could just be what you need to invigorate your senses and clarify your mind.
By all means bring your map when you visit the Cairngorms, but be sure to pack your artistic compass, too. Because an adventure into the area's creative scenery is just as spectacular.
Strange and otherworldly, familiar and comforting. These are the dualities that the curators at Saatchi see in Joanna Wilson's art. How about you? Leave your interpretations below! Or better still, stop by for a studio visit the next time you're in Grantown-on-Spey.
Comments