Jo Ann Biagini uses paper and paint to create multilayered, collaged artworks inspired by the natural world. By reconfiguring pages from books about nature, and playing with imagery through drawing, painting, image transfer, layering and sanding, she explores connections among various elements and patterns, both real and imagined. With these additive and subtractive processes, enhanced by improvisations of shape, color, scale and meaning, she hopes to evoke a sense of curiosity and mystery about the workings of the natural world and our relationships to it.
This current body of work includes large-scale pieces that reference entering, or being enveloped by an environment. At times she incorporates additional painted elements, such as colored circles, to reference the energy present in our atmosphere and emanated by living things. These elements also serve to draw attention to the mottled textural background of the work while allowing for containment of color.
“Pentimento” refers to the many corrections or repentances that are painted over and changed in the process of creating her works.
Jo Ann Biagini was born in Oakland, California. She received a BA from UC Santa Cruz in art and an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in ceramics. She has had numerous shows at various venues including the SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery and Gray Loft Gallery in Oakland. Her work is included in the Alameda County Art Collection, the Stanford and Kaiser Hospitals collections, and the Artist in Embassies Collection in Djibouti, Africa. She currently teaches at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA.