JoWonder



JoWonder, born Joanna Woodward, has a multidisciplined artistic practice, a British painter, avant-garde stopmotion animator, performance artist and writer. They are noted for being from a generation of British avant-garde animators such as Brothers Quay and Phil Mulloy. They made/make work that brings concepts from postmodern literature, the surrealist movement, and contemporary art to cinema. Their films, which use collage, puppets, textured painting, and text, provide a counterpoint between the metaphysical and the playful. Lilliputian characters are often introduced to an apocalyptic realm ruled by giants. Jo's work combines: their own literature, religious, political, fairy-tale, and scientific themes using satire and symbolism.

They made their first commissioned short film, Sawdust for Brains and the Key of Wisdom, for Channel 4 Television in the 1990s.

Education
They were educated at St Martins School of Art and National Film and Television School.

Animated films
In 1990 their animated film The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp using stop frame animation, and featuring performance artist Rose English [], won the Grand Prize at Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film, the Direction Award for best first animated film at the British Animation Awards and the Time Out Film Award. It was also a part of Between Imagination and Reality, a programme of film and video selected by Tilda Swinton.

According to Jonathon Romney of Sight and Sound Magazine 1992 volume 2 issue 7

"The Brooch Pin lends itself to being read as a male nightmare, but that is certainly where the resonances lie. "

Expo Director Amanda Casson of the Creative Review called ''The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp "an impressive short". ''

Video installation
In 2007, their video installation Flatlanders, expressing a judgement of the scale of ambition of science at CERN, was featured in Guildford Cathedral in connection with a science debate organised by Surrey University called Is science the new religion? attended by Jim Al-Khalili and Dr Brian Cox. The subject was based around the nuclear experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

One of their ongoing projects is 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia, research funded by The Wellcome Trust and with a microbiology input by Dr Simon Park of Surrey University. Under The Microscope is an interpretation of Ophelia painted out of bacteria that incorporates messages to Ophelia from the public as part of the soundscape.

Performance
They have also been active as a performer. Their avant-garde performance art has included working within the experimental the Washroom Collective, which typically involves improvisation and audience interaction.

2012, MayJoWonder and the Psychic Tea Leaves a site-specific 45-minute performance in the tradition of a Victorian seance, using the supernatural as subject  performed at the belfry of St Johns on Bethnal Green, part of First Thursdays organised by Whitechapel Art Gallery.

2019, September, The Woven Plait of Beatrice a part of a site-specific event The Woven with seven multidisciplinary artists and musicians inspired by the unique heritage of St Leonard's, Shoreditch. 2020 further developed as an experimental performance video.

2023, May 6, they performed a site-specific piece as a part of  'L'Age d'Or' a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan, to celebrate the film L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali The film explores themes such as: humanization, destruction, confusion, passion, fear, oppression and isolation. JoWonder’s performance took place over the weekend of the coronation of Charles III in the Uk; incorporating a mock coronation of Street Artist Rolling Fool, dressed in a monkey costume. The exhibition brought together forty international artists to reflect on the question: What would Buñuel’s L'Age d'Or look like today?

2024, May 3, they performed another site-specific piece as a part of 'L'Age d'Or Event' [] a contemporary surrealist group exhibition with forty international artists, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan, to reflect on the question: What would the Luis Buñuel film L'Age d'Or made in collaboration with Salvador Dali, look like today? [15] The performance took place at: The Valid World Hall, Barcelona, and incorporated the character of 'Clock Lady', a personification of a sinister character in control of time, performed as performance poetry.

Filmography

 * 1980 The Grid starring Peter Murphy (musician). A New Contemporaries Prize Winner 1981, painting shown the same year.
 * 1985 The Hump Back Angel
 * 1986 Two Children Threatened by a Nightingale
 * 1989 The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp (short) - NFTS. Live action and stop frame puppet animation: with renowned performance artist Rose English
 * 1991 The Weatherhouse with IOU Theatre
 * 1992 Sawdust for Brains and the Key of Wisdom (short) - Channel 4 Television
 * 1997 The Cat
 * 1998 Don't Submit to a Moments Passion with a Stranger
 * 2004 Walking
 * 2006 6 Days Goodbye Poems of Ophelia
 * 2007 Flatlanders
 * 2020 The Storyteller

Activism
In 2008, they set up British Women Artists [], without government or arts establishment funding, using the scope of the internet to form an online portfolio of both known and unknown artists. In 2019, BWA became an archive for artists any nationality working in the UK, that associated with a concept of the feminine; forming an alternative grassroots record of UK artistic practice putting it within reach of history, while having remained outside of mainstream funding and promotion.

2024- They are currently developing a language called 'Sandwich', designed to be constantly changing, to maintain our freedom and duck below the increasing monitoring by AI, believing that it could provide privacy and freedom outside of increasing government, cultural, and commercial constraints created by AI's ability to monitor our behaviour.

Media appearances

 * State of the Art - Channel 4, 1993
 * Moving Pictures - BBC, 1993

Selected exhibition
2020-2021, painting of Christine Keeler shown as a part of 'Dear Christine' an Arts Council of Great Britain group exhibition, curated by Fionn Wilson; re-framing the life of Christine Keeler https:// https://internationaltimes.it/dear-christine/

2023, 5–7 May; paintings; including a depiction of Liz Truss being abducted by fairies*, and Xi Jinping having breakfast with his dog, shown as a part of L'Age d'Or, a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan. The exhibition celebrated the surrealist film: L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali. The L'Age d'Or exhibition and event took place at the Crypt Gallery St Pancras New Church,

Liz Truss being abducted by fairies* 'Abduction of the Sleeping Prime Minister' was also shown in the London Biannale 2023, https://internationaltimes.it/the-abduction-of-the-sleeping-prime-minister/

Curated exhibitions

 * JoWonder curated an exhibition on the theme of Schrödinger's cat in 2022, with help from a Public Engagement Grant from the Institute of Physics which included 21 visual artists at the Bookery Gallerie, London.