Meet the Maker – Jo Sharpe

Hi Jo, Can you begin by telling us about your early life and how you first became interested in making and creating?

I was brought up in Norfolk and I would say we didn’t have loads of money but my mum was very creative, so it was a very simple life. She taught me how to paint and make crafts, and she taught me to sew as well. I can remember when I needed a ball dress, we made a dress out of a pair of curtains, that kind of thing.

I always loved drawing and painting so I did a Foundation course and then I wanted to do a degree in Fine Art but very disappointingly I didn’t get into Sheffield, which was where I really wanted to go. Instead, I wound up doing Textile Design at Bretton Hall College, an arts college set in Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It doesn’t exist anymore, but that was a really fantastic place to do it. It was a very creative course. At the end of it, I tried freelancing and I did get some agents but I just didn’t like the nature of freelancing. Having to sell yourself and make a living from doing what you love. So I had to get a job. I worked for a French textile company in Chelsea, in the office and the showroom, and then eventually into the contract market. That’s how I ended up in London.

Although you originally trained in textile design, painting has always remained central to your practice. What is it that continues to draw you back to paint, and particularly to oils?

I’ve just always adored painting. At college, I painted mostly with acrylics but doing textile design, I learned techniques in creating texture and how to make colours work harmoniously together. When you’re doing a printed textile design and you’re only allowed three colours, you really have to make those colours work together. Colour really remains my thing, along with creating texture in my still lifes. I do still enjoy painting with acrylics but oils are my favourite. Sometimes when I haven’t got time I paint with acrylics to get things done quickly. But when I do start using oils again, I think, ‘oh, I don’t know why I ever paint with anything else.’

Your work feels very connected to nature and the changing seasons. How much does the landscape around you influence what you make throughout the year?

I just find the colours are so different in the different seasons. So we’re coming into May now, which for me is vibrant hedgerows and verges season. As soon as the dandelions start popping up, then I think ‘okay, the good weather and the spring’s coming’. And then from the dandelions you’ve got the verges, the hedgerows, and when you’ve got hedgerows that have got the pink flowers and everything’s in abundance, that for me is just such a beautiful time of year really, May and June. I might do a little bit of printing or geli-printing with the actual nature. I do love just having fun and experimenting really. So I’ll be working on the hedgerows, and then it might be wildflower meadows, the tulips and the still lifes. I love the autumn colours, so it will be trees and leaves in autumn. In the winter, I do barren skies and murmurations of birds. 

Your studio practice sounds very energetic and intuitive. What does your process actually look like day to day?

It can be really chaotic! My studio is very messy. I do teach term time, so ten weeks I teach, so I do have to tidy up for those lessons that I teach. But in between I’m just like a whirlwind. I love experimenting, and I do work on lots of different paintings at the same time. I’ve got a really big end wall where I can put them all up and see how they all work together. Where my studio is, it’s set in a lovely park and they sow meadow there. It’s all beautiful, chalky soil. The drainage isn’t very good so you’re just left with some big oxeye daisies and other plants that suit the soil type. It’s really nice to walk there in the evening. I can maybe even take Tilly, my dog. I  work outside the studio in the summer, and lots of people stop and say hello.

Yeah, and I can just be there late into the evening painting. It’s great having those extra few hours and then home really through the meadow. Most paintings take a couple of layers of oil paint just to get those colours just right. So I might put one layer on, and then put it up with one or two other paintings, to see them all working together, before refining the colour or composition. I like to think of them as being a bit like family members, really. When you think, ‘I’ve made a couple of sisters there’ or something, and then you think, yeah, they’re part of me really.

There’s such a strong sense of observation in your work, especially in the way you paint flowers, foliage and still life subjects. What is it that you’re hoping to capture in those pieces?

People must think I’m a bit strange where I am, but wherever I go for a walk, I’ve got a bunch of something in my hands. I take my dog for a walk every morning and pick blossom, a little bit of foliage, dandelions, and leaves from the winter. But I just kind of wanted to show the beauty of new growth coming through. I’ve been experimenting with my still life compositions lately too. There’s something about the shape of a pear, and they always work really nicely in compositions. And pebbles as well. I love the colours of pears, you know, you get beautiful greens and really lovely colour changes. I just think nature is so beautiful, like all the different colours and the shapes and sizes and the natural forms. And that’s really just what I want to show.

Are there particular artists or movements that continue to inspire the way you approach colour and composition?

I would say generally it’s nature and the seasons that inspire me, but I would say the Impressionist movement is one of my favourites. I love Klimt, Matisse and Monet, their fabulous use of colour. I’m always on Instagram looking at different artists, so I get lots of ideas there. I love the Cornish painters, their love of the sea and nature. And yeah, I just love art really.

Visit Jo Sharpe’s headline collection of carefully observed and delicately rendered still lifes in the gallery until July 5. 

See Jo’s ‘Still/Life’ collection here.