Joanna’s paintings are objects of beauty and magic to be collected and treasured for a life time and to touch the soul of the admirer. Her vision guides her brush to create hauntingly beautiful animals with her unique style of using unexpected yet stunning colours. Joanna frames her paintings in contemporary compositions which enhance today’s popular minimalist and luxury interior design styles for private homes, boutique hotels, historic or modern corporate buildings, private yachts and more.
Joanna is recognised and collected in the Art Market and has a listing in “Who’s Who in Art”. Her work has sold at Christies Auctions, her paintings hang in two of Raymond Blanc’s bedroom suites at his famous Hotel ‘Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons’ and she has sold to blue chip organizations such as Standard Chartered and Old Mutual Banks. She has also sold her work to many celebrities.
Joanna explains “It all started with the hare – what interests me is the mystical side to them, we don’t know much about them and their habits. I painted the first one when I opened my gallery in Marlborough in 2001. It was a painting I had had in my head for 7 years when I was illustrating wildlife books and I was thirsty to paint for me and show off my forte of fur detail. My father was in publishing and from as long as I can remember I always wanted to be an artist and he encouraged me believing it was a worthy trade.”
Joanna continues “ My painting started with hyper realism, though I was interested in paintings that fitted into the modern interior keeping the work fresh and modern. This has evolved as my style changed to reflect what’s going on in interior design. Now what excites me is coming up with something fresh and vibrant. This freshness and vibrancy changed to a whole new level in 2004 when I got a painting into to Christies ‘Art for Life’ auction. I wanted to do something different with wildlife so I came up with a Zebra, cropping the pattern to the edge of the canvas. I love the graphic patterns you can find in nature, the stripes of a Zebra and the spots of a Leopard, its pattern, style and colour is what interests me, reflecting the changes again in the interior market. The quirkiness of painting a Leopard in bright pink, lime green, turquoise, orange and trying to do something unique. I want to invigorate nature through its imaginative use of colour and abstraction. The new work is not merely a lion, tiger, leopard or zebra because I want to personalise them to make bold graphic statements with strong contemporary design. Nature is full of colour and bold patterns, look at the brightly coloured turquoise of a morpho butterfly or the red and green of the poison dart frog. There is a spectrum of colour out there and I want to use it all right now especially since the interior market is grabbing jewel like colours in furnishings and accent walls. Interior Design is something that greatly reflects in my work.”
In 2006 Joanna talked about her life and career on BBC’s ‘Spring Watch’ program and her work and her beautiful home have been covered by many newspaper articles and magazines including 25 Beautiful Homes in 2012 as seen in the Press Book, Latest News and Events pages. She has worked with many celebrities and wildlife TV presenters to help raise money for conservation and endangered animals and worked directly with many conservation groups including:
2005 Lee Durrell, Gerald Durrell’s widow, to raise money for the Gerald Durrell Foundation Auction of a painting by DJ Mike Read at her Exhibition at Gallery One, London
2008 The conservation group ‘Tusk’ at a show at Raymond Blanc’s ‘Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons’
2010 painted a large fiberglass elephant, displayed outside ‘The National Theatre London’ to raise money for the conservation group ‘Elephant Family’ to save the Asian elephant and for WWF at an exhibition at her gallery ‘The ‘Year of the Tiger’ raised money for the Tiger
2011 held an exhibition at her home in Wiltshire with Chris Packham, wildlife TV presenter to raise money for tiger conservation for his girlfriend’s Zoo on the Isle of Wight
2012 held an exhibition at the Savoy Hotel London with Michaela Strachan, wildlife TV presenter to raise money and awareness for the Tiger at London Zoo for the plight of the Tiger at London Zoo
2013 held a large Auction conducted by Paul Martin BBC’s ‘Flog It’ presenter at her exhibition in Henley, Oxfordshire to raise money for Animals Asia
2014 held an exhibition at her home in Wiltshire with Paul Martin who presented a talk on Art and Interiors and how Joanna’s work fits into the modern interior. Rachel Ducker’s wire sculptures also featured at the exhibition
Joanna has also raised money from her work for The Born Free Foundation, Cancer Research and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Please call or email Joanna to arrange an appointment to come and view her work.
Joanna May
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: +44 (0) 7813 124 120