JoWonder

JoWonder, born Joanna Woodward, has a multidisciplined artistic practice, she is a British painter, avant-garde stopmotion animator, performance artist and writer. She is noted for being from a generation of British avant-garde animators such as Brothers Quay and David Anderson. They made/make work which brings concepts from postmodern literature, the surrealist movement, and contemporary art to cinema. Her films, which use collage, textured painting, and text, provide counterpoint between the metaphysical and the playful. Lilliputian characters are often introduced to an apocalyptic realm ruled by giants. Her work combines religious, political, fairy-tale, and scientific themes using satire and symbolism [1][2]

Jowonder
Born
Joanna Woodward
NationalityBritish
EducationSt Martins School of Art, National Film and Television School
Known forVisual art, painting, film, animation, performance
MovementPostmodern
AwardsBritish Animation Awards 1990 (Best Direction), Animafest 1990 (Grand Prize), Time Out Film Award, Cartazini Biennial Award 2019
Dog Licks Baby by JoWonder

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

Education

She was educated at St Martins School of Art and National Film and Television School.

Animated films

In 1990 her animated film The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp[3] using stop frame animation won the Grand Prize at Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film, the Direction Award for best first animated film at the British Animation Awards[4] and the Time Out Film Award. It was also a part of Between Imagination and Reality,[5] 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, her video installation Flatlanders, expressing a judgement of the scale of ambition of science at CERN,[6] 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 her ongoing projects is 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia,[7] research funded by The Wellcome Trust[8] and with a microbiology input by Dr Simon Park[9] of Surrey University. Under The Microscope[10] is an interpretation of Ophelia painted out of bacteria that incorporates messages to Ophelia from the public as part of the soundscape.[11]

Performance

She has also been active as a performer. Her avant-garde performance art has included working within the experimental the Washroom Collective,[12] which typically involves improvisation and audience interaction.

2012, May 2012,JoWonder 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.[13]

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 and, 2020 further developed as an experimental performance video.[14]

Filmography
  • 1980 The Grid starring Peter Murphy (musician). A New Contemporaries Prize Winner 1981, painting shown the same year. [15]
  • 1985 The Hump Back Angel[16]
  • 1986 Two Children Threatened by a Nightingale
  • 1989 The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp (short) - NFTS.[17] 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[18] (short) - Channel 4 Television[19]
  • 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, she set up British Women Artists (BWA), 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 a (2008-2019) archive for women artists any nationality working in the UK; forming an alternative grassroots record of UK artistic practice establishing the group within reach of history.

Media appearances

Selected exhibitions
  • 2020 - Dear Christine (a Tribute to Christine Keeler), Arthouse 1, London[21][22][23][24][25][26]- Dear Christine (a Tribute to Christine Keeler), Elysium Gallery, Swansea, UK[21][27]

Curated exhibitions
  • Jowonder curated an exhibition on the theme of Schrodinger’s Cat in 2022, with help from her Public Engagement Grant from the Institute of Physics which included 21 visual artists at the Bookery Gallerie, London.[28][29][30]

References
  1. https://www.surgingtidemag.com/feature-jowonder.html
  2. https://internationaltimes.it/the-abduction-of-the-sleeping-prime-minister
  3. The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp
  4. British Animation Awards
  5. Between Imagination And Reality
  6. The New Future blog article on Flatlanders
  7. 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia
  8. "The Wellcome Trust Sciart 2006". Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
  9. Dr Simon Park
  10. Under The Microscope
  11. Microbial Art
  12. The Washroom Collective
  13. Jowonder And The Psychic Tea Leaves
  14. "The Woven Part 2. (The Storyteller)". YouTube.
  15. "Peter Murphy stars as 'The Dead' in the experimental Super 8 film 'The Grid,' 1980". DangerousMinds. 21 October 2016. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  16. The Hump Back Angel
  17. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: The Brooch Pin And The Sinful Clasp. YouTube.
  18. Sawdust for Brains And The Key Of Wisdom
  19. Sawdust For Brains And The Key of Wisdom. YouTube. Archived from the original on 9 December 2021.
  20. State of the art - Channel 4 - 1993
  21. Wilson, Fionn (2018). "Dear Christine". Garageland. 22: 52–53. ISSN 1749-9267.
  22. Fionn Wilson (12 April 2019), Dear Christine (a tribute to Christine Keeler), retrieved 12 April 2019
  23. Kelly, Mike (25 May 2019). "Reframing our society's cruel portrait of Christine Keeler". The Journal. ncjMedia. ISSN 0307-3645.
  24. Gold, Tanya (28 May 2019). "Christine Keeler is being reframed - about time". The Daily Telegraph. p. 19. ISSN 0307-1235.
  25. Woolf, Jan (30 May 2019). "Exhibition Review: Image Restoration". Morning Star. People's Press Printing Society. ISSN 0307-1758.
  26. Woolf, Jan (2019). "Dear Christine". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  27. Mall Galleries, London
  28. "Bookery Gallerie".
  29. "IOP".
  30. "British Women Artists".
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