Joanna Powell is an artist specialising in paintings of folk musicians, living and working at Sunderland Point, Lancashire.She studied Fine Art at the Story Institute, Lancaster, before
moving to Scotland where she exhibited regularly and became
immersed in the rich musical culture there, both as musician and
artist.
Initally she worked as a portrait artis but developed her unique painting style after sketching fellow musicians. She has become increasingly interested in collaborations between art and music – sketching musicians during a performance and letting the music they play influence the outcome of the painting.
She has taught art for the past 20 years in Scotland and Lancashire and was artist in residence at The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, during Tradfest 2015, and at Maddy Prior’s Stepping Stones Festival 2015 where she sketched musicians performing.
Her oils capture the love every musician feels towards their instrument and the magical world they enter when they become lost in music. She is primarily interested in the shapes musicians make, the juxtaposition of shapes when they play together and the space created between them. Her paintings have been described as: ‘Modigliani meets East European Folk Art.’