Jo Darvall

Following Jo Darvall’s recent artist residency in Fiji in partnership with Lancaster Press, Fox Galleries presents Jo Darvall’s paintings, vessels and monoprints for her upcoming solo exhibition ‘Hydrosphere’. This series is emanating water; it is viscerally overflowing with a sense of life and hope in watery exclamations.

While joyous, this new series embodies a deeper sense of restorative forces. The relationships between the vessels and monoprints entice you into her watery offerings; wide shapes and rhythmic form cycles; she is not interested in the first glance. 

Jo Darvall is recent winner of the Collie Art Prize and has established her career from the way in which she encounters her surroundings and brings narratives to people, places and things. She is often revisiting sites to engage with natural life cycles and subtle shifts in the environmental surroundings. This exhibition tends to our watery planet in deep affection. 

Observing the hydrosphere through tranquil colours, Darvall explores the complexities of water in regulating the atmosphere through the aquatic bound lotus flower, which returns to murky water each evening, only to open its blooms again at the break of day, reborn. Darvall’s artwork appears to bloom anew each time you look. 

Travelling to a small, difficult to reach Island, Darvall emphasises the importance of the traditionally crafted paper in this series- Masi. Due to the intensive, community based process, the elders of this community only provide paper to people who are aligned with their values & with good reason. Crafted by the small spindly bark from the mulberry tree, the plant based strips are soaked, dried, squashed and pressed durationally to form a single sheet. 

Darvall’s monoprints, paintings and vessels hold a small stage for the hydrosphere, and will continue to offer attentiveness and a quiet place to reflect. In antiquities this ritual is referred to as Libation, an act that coincides with the launch of an artist book combining Darvall’s artwork with poetry written by Yann Toussaint, with words that beautifully augment this essence. 

The limited edition 32-page handcrafted companion book will be available at the opening on 28 September.