Hummel’s Automatic paintings function as a psychologically exploratory activity, wherein conscious intention and decision regarding the formal aspects of the work might be or beget behaviours and artefacts upon which an intimate reading of unconscious influence may be made. Every day is an expedition of intimate, intense, and unrelenting self-research through which Hummel seeks to better know herself.

Practical automatism plays a key role. Those periods that span the momentary constructions of the paintings, as she shifts sheets, shapes, and shades here and there, are visible evidence from which she endeavours to deduce invisible cause. Waiting for or compelling visual balance to make itself known, she pursues process instinctively, seeking to tap into a raw, pre-lingual form of visual communication that may map the wilderness of the subconscious by fragments and allow for a piecing together of its undeniable influence on wakeful activity.

These mental incisions are necessarily deep, but there is a protective element to Hummel’s approach. By channeling a risk laden pursuit of personal discovery through her painting practice revelations are abstracted to the point that she alone may make a true reading. The spectrum of the human condition exists within the paintings, each containing something profoundly of the artist’s self, knowingly bound up in formal abstraction. A reading on a purely visual level may be forgiven for, expected, or even intended to overlook those parts so absolutely critical to Hummel on a personal level because of their intense intimacy, yet aesthetic scrutiny will still reveal fragility in the fault lines, and a vulnerability that skirts the edges of otherwise confident forms and colours. Accident and scar are not concealed and, as is true of any individual, imperfection and honesty such as this admit complexity, accept human fault and reveal depth of character that can only come from discarding masks of perfection and laying bare the truth, as much to oneself as anyone else.

Jo Hummel (Surrey, UK, 1982) received an MA from the Royal College of Art (2006) and has since shown her work extensively in UK, also Europe and US.

Jo lives and works in the Isle of Wight. Jo’s works are executed from a combination of acrylic paint and paper on ply, on which she employs spontaneous variations of space, colour and form.