Jo C Willems

Exhibiting Member

Preferred Medium:

Gouache

Artist Bio:

Life was a fuzzy world of planes of colour until I received a pair of glasses at the age of four. The experience of seeing detail for the first time and making the connection between colour and form has had a profound impact on my work.
As a student of science and mathematics I took delight in the exact and the abstract. Pursuit of a formal degree in the sciences (BSc, UBC, 1975) taught me how to ask questions and to explore more than one option, no matter the subject.
After completing an MFA studio (UC Irvine, 1978) I wandered for nearly a decade, traveling thousands of miles on long distance trails including the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Great Divide before it was a designated route. This emersion into the wilderness had a significant impact on the way I live life as well as exposing me to the realities of living and dying, and thus my place in the world. My work reflects this in the use of landscape imagery which I use as a safe and welcoming metaphor to speak of these profound insights.
Language is not just verbal. My years of working as a clinical counsellor as well as a study of art history taught me much about how we communicate with each other in many different ways, including a common visual language. I use my unique sense of this visual language in my own art as well as when teaching others to ‘see’.
Aging is perhaps the greatest gift we are given, for with it comes the profound awareness of death. The undeniable sense of the finite that is so much a part of successful aging renders a deep awareness of self from which comes wisdom and the drive to speak of that wisdom. That is a significant part of what it means to me to be an artist today.
My work has been exhibited in public galleries throughout British Columbia and Alberta. I've had the privilege of being an artist-in-residence in Glacier and Mt Revelstoke National Parks. My work is found in many private collections throughout the world. Currently I am represented by Alpine Echo Gallery in Revelstoke. I live in Black Creek, BC.

Artist Statement:

My work is about language. I use landscape imagery because it is comfortable and welcoming to the viewer. Not necessarily pretty or compositionally 'correct', I use the elements of an image to draw the viewer through a visual experience. Living, dying, 'thriving in spite of it' are often themes in my work as they are in life. My sense of visual language comes from much study of how we communicate. Every culture develops language and that language constantly evolves. As an artist I reach for ways to express my times without reflecting the violence and pain which is so much a part of being human. Instead I work towards offering insight into the goodness of now, for there is much to celebrate.