PAINTING

Joanna studied Art History at Cambridge University, receiving a 1st class Hons degree. She has always had a passion for Art and has worked in various art galleries and establishments. She has completed internships at Bold Tendencies, Pierogi in NYC and Christies. Joanna’s experience in the art world and studies have very much influenced her own artistic practice. Joanna has developed a distinctive nostalgic aesthetic for her works which explore a variety of themes.

Joanna cemented this style when completing her painting residency at Studio Kura in Japan in 2016. She exhibited her works ‘Between these threads of time’ to great success in Itoshima. One year later, Joanna exhibited her new collection ‘Woven Roots of Dreams’ at Art Chamber Goa in India and then Kashi Art Gallery in Kerela. In 2018, Joanna curated and exhibited at Rosemary Dream’s exhibition ‘The Pace of Nature’ which was the first art festival in Bara da Lagoa in Florianopolis Brazil. Joanna has been primarily working as a theatre director and producer since, running her company ‘The Feathers of Daedalus Circus’ but has also been building up her collection on the side and taking commissions.

Writing about Joanna’s work by art historian Lina Vincent

As a painter, Joanna Vymeris combines delicate strokes, soft textures, muted tones and flowing line to create atmospheres that resonate with poetry. She intuitively juxtaposes forms and structures, introducing elements of figuration into abstract spaces. These are dream landscapes; contemplative spaces inhabited by persons and places from memory as well as history. The series of works compiled in 'Woven Roots of Dreams' reflects a mingling of the real and imaginary, abstracting experience to generate picture planes that are both visual and tactile. The works are her means of telling stories; they represent journeys both into her inner and outer worlds, framed by configurations of the past and present.
For the artist, painting is something she has always turned to as a means of exploring ideas and creative trajectories. Her practice as a performer and circus artist runs parallel to her exploration as a painter and printmaker. She navigates the complexities of time and space as she moves between the two streams, with similar references and expressive forms appearing in both. A symbiotic relationship has developed between the two, one feeding into the other organically, inspirationally so. Her practice has also evolved through a deep engagement with art history, which has influenced her choices as an artist.
The bare trees featured in a number of the works seem symbolic of the cycle of time, a proposition of change and the promise of spring yet to come. The sense of isolation, and the notion of a pause, reflects an innate response to oriental aesthetics. Part of the series of works references her time at a residency in Japan, while she continues to work towards the creative exploration of her upcoming production, The Midsummer Night's Dream. She builds a body of work to accompany each theatre production she develops.
Through the application of varied mediums: painting, printmaking, collage, and mixed mediums, Joanna elaborates narratives that are both private and universal. Her paintings reveal and obscure; she uses evocative devices of layering paint with stains and print transfer, creating imagery that draws the eye inward. The enchanted, dreamlike spaces beckon the viewer, leading him/her into unknown spaces that appear as the meeting point of various thoughts and emotions. The works resonate with the sense of the other, a distant place, echoing with the richness of the undefined. Joanna maps personal and collective history through her works, often utilising factual and fictional references, texts and photographs, placing them as tangible clues in the reading of her work.
Joanna has developed a distinctive language that merges the essence of landscape, figuration and experimental layering of image and script. The images seem to metamorphose before one's eyes, portraying shifting landscapes of the mind, isolated from the humdrum and chaos of the world. There is peace, calm and silence here.