I have brought to painting something that began in performance art, positioning my body as an agency of a particular kind of knowing and taking painting into the territory of an event.

As a child in the south of France I saw artists live in a different way, trade their art in different ways and create ways of living outside the conventions of the time. What seemed to me to be an ‘Artist-led’ way of life, made a deep impression and helped me form my art / life practice.
Joanna Jones

Jones’s practice includes her studio based painting practice as well as the porous collaborative structures she has founded with and for other artists over the years.

Following a foundation year at Northwich College of Art, Jones continued her studies in London at the Byam Shaw School receiving her NDD in painting from Goldsmith’s College in 1966. In 1965 she was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and in 1969 she won first prize in the Greater London Council’s painting competition, London 1969, before graduating from the Royal Academy Schools in 1970. In 1973 she co-founded the London studio collective, The Works, with Bryn Jones. In 1978 they moved to Germany where she established her painting practice, exhibiting nationally and internationally. In Frankfurt she was artist in residence with the Fragile Theatre Company and in Berlin established the Pükler Salon. In 1997 she returned to the UK and settled in Dover. She has received several professional awards, including a scholarship from Künstlerhaus Balmoral in 2000 and an ACE Year of the Artist award for a projection on the white cliffs at Samphire Hoe in 2001. In 2006, the Pharos Art Foundation brought out a major publication on her practice. In 2006 she co founded Dover Arts Development DAD) with artist Clare Smith, winning the Kent Culture Best arts organisation in the South East Award in 2016. DAD’s artist directors imagine, manage & deliver projects within the visual arts, poetry, music & sound while actively pursuing a strategic role for the arts in placemaking. Jones has a residency space in her home for visiting artists and the DAD urban room for meetings, events, salons and conversations. She continues to exhibit her paintings (inter)nationally.