Catherine Asquith Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Jo Darbyshire, is a mid-career Western Australian painter whose work is represented in significant Australian art collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Murdoch University, Bank West, Royal Perth Hospital, Department of Culture and the Arts, Edith Cowan University and the Cities of Stirling and Wanneroo. Her work has also been selected for inclusion in many curated and award group exhibitions, notably the Joondalup Art Award (2004 and 2005), the Bank West Contemporary Art Prize where she won the open prize in 2005, and most recently she was a finalist in the Fleurieu (Water) Art Award (2011).

Darbyshire has been the recipient of research grants awarded from the Western Australian Ministry or Culture and the Arts and the Australia Council. In 2007, she was juried into the international thematic residency Imaginary Places, at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Darbyshire received both her Bachelor of Fine Arts and her Master of Creative Arts from the Curtin University of Technology.

Artist Statement:

Much of my past painting work has explored the idea of 'underwater' worlds, focusing on specific places and the desire to paint abstract works that encourage the imaginative identification with 'being underwater'.

In this new body of work, I have aimed to make work that references the glowing, yet restricted palette of the west coast of Ireland.

I am interested in making works that explore the idea of the sacred (water) in the landscape. The idea and importance of the ‘well’ resonates historically in the colonial Australian landscape as does the ‘holy well’ and ‘holy water’, in Ireland. This symbol connects to deeper references to water and its contested ownership, and to material and spiritual resonances, still current in both countries.

I was particularly interested in the glass globes, filled with holy water and religious figures, used to commemorate loved ones on contemporary graveyards, scattered throughout the Irish countryside. These surreal, little ‘underwater worlds’ acted as poetic markers in the landscape.

I am not interested in making ‘religious’ or 'anti-religious' paintings but rather, to use images collected during a residency at Cill Rialaig Artists Studios in Kerry, Ireland in 2012, and to explore the visual possibilities inherent in humble objects and places, given the status holy or sacred.

Image: © Jo Darbyshire, Catherine Asquith Gallery