Jo Coyle

About the Artist

Shifting between classic painting and tactile mixed media pieces, Jo considers her work to be led by an internal "art roulette." With unending curiosity that feeds her exploration of various subjects and media, Jo challenges her creative boundaries and assumptions whenever she can for the sake of evoking subjective, emotional reaction and nostalgic connection. Jo aims to create art that speaks to viewers if only by bringing to life the narrative beauty within the subtle and the fleeting, under-appreciated ordinary. Jo graduated from Mount St. Mary's University with a BA in Fine Art in 2011, after studying fine art and film at the Carver Center for Arts & Technology in Towson, MD. Experiencing the beginning of the pandemic while pregnant rekindled her artistic practice, as it became a safe outlet with which to filter a growing awareness and suspicion of the unknown. Since then her work has been featured in several local and online exhibitions, including a 2022 solo exhibition in Baltimore dedicated to bringing awareness to women’s mental health through a journalistic series of portraits. Jo is based in bucolic Freeland, Maryland, where she celebrates life with her husband, young daughter and beloved dog.

Artist's Statement

Light Fixtures serves as my first dedicated study of the complexities of light and color within natural scenes. After observation of many landscapes through commutes, hikes, and other outdoor excursions, I’ve found that the playful and often dramatic relationship between light and what tempers it fascinates me, and reminds me of how artful objects like lampshades and sconces dampen, redirect, or recolor light to create various atmospheres. Nature does the same on a wild, magnificent scale, and for whatever reason evokes within me a visceral sense of peace, solitude, and otherworldliness.  Inspired by this reaction, I created these landscapes to craft these dynamics I witnessed and produce space for viewers to respond in their own way. Throughout the collection I balanced my own emotional processes and translations with evolving technical skills, experimenting with a myriad of oil painting techniques to promote my artistic growth and to honor how light plays upon organic and manmade structures in scenes from my Freeland backyard to the skies above, and even the cold waters of Patagonia.