Jo Gorner works primarily in editioned prints on paper and drawing.  Her practice starts in notebooks with drawing, writing and observations from walking. The controlled, painstaking process of print, the act of making the final work, becomes a way of ‘going to the place’.

The central pivot of Jo’s work is emotion and memory held within a language of place, landscape and the mapping of intimate geographical details. A new landscape is created as a reflection of herself within a place, reframing the landscape to better understand herself within it.

Jo gained her BA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford and an MA in Print at Manchester Metropolitan University.  For three years she was a part time doctoral researcher at the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts ( LICA) at Lancaster University,  her area of research was ‘The Therapeutic Landscape: The creative translation of an encounter with the natural landscape and a consideration of the impact upon wellbeing’.

Jo has undertaken several location based projects: Field Works in 2014,a commission to create a land art work for a 10 acre field in the South Pennines, a selection of the resulting print based works were exhibited in a solo show Familiar Land at Northern Print, Newcastle, in 2016.  Littoral , 2011 – 2013, was an Arts Council funded project to create site responsive work based on west coast landscapes in the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Mull and Cumbria. The culmination of this project was a residency at An Tobar on Mull and a series of solo exhibitions at Flowers Gallery, London, An Tobar, Tobermory,  Strand Gallery, Aldeburgh and the Piece Hall, Halifax.  In 2003 – 2004 Jo completed her first residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co.Mayo, Ireland, from which she produced Source, a series of 28 prints which were shown in a solo show at the Flowers East Gallery, London in 2006. Work from a second residency at Ballinglen in 2007 was exhibited at Dublin Graphic Studio, Ireland and the Courthouse Gallery, Ballycastle, Ireland in 2009-10.

Other recent exhibitions include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2013 – 2018, Works on Paper, Campden Gallery, 2019,  New Light Touring 2018-19, The Original Print Show, Zillah Bell Gallery, 2017-18.  Jo has received seven  Arts Council awards and her work is held in private and public collections  including the Department of Prints & Drawings of the British Museum, London, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Bankfield Museum, Halifax and Bury City Art Gallery.

Jo lives and works in West Yorkshire, she self publishes her work from her print studio at Dean Clough, Halifax.