The ethereal paintings of Jo Darbyshire explore an imagined spatial environment of underwater places. With an incredible sense of depth Darbyshire’s paintings invite the viewer to explore dark hidden places and treasures momentarily disrupted by the presence of a phosphorescent substance or webcam. Darbyshire’s paintings evoke a sense of discovery of unfamiliar textures and shapes that exist in a mysterious watery world. Within her the canvas a duality exists of the beautiful vividness of life illuminated and the unsettling sensations of deciphering the unknown while submerged in the shadowy underwater.
Derbyshire’s paintings have been described as “landscapes without boundaries” in which the viewer’s sense of field and orientation is blurred; are you looking down through the water from above, or submerged and looking up, surrounded by it? The painted surfaces are deep, fully saturated in colour; the dark areas are richly built up with an abundance of thinly layered oil paint.
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) and the Bank West Contemporary Art Prize where she won the open prize in 2005.
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
