Jo Tracy

Hello and welcome to my virtual gallery site. I am a professional visual artist, writer and designer based in Redfern, an inner city suburb of Sydney, Australia.
As well as these limited and unique edition digital canvas prints there are many more original artworks and handmade objects available in my collection of works dating back to the late '70's early 80's up until the present. Some images may be available on lightbox film and photo paper upon request.
I have original paintings (produced using either oils, watercolour, acrylic or mixed media), sculptures, pastel, pencil and charcoal drawings, collages, digital photographs, polaroids and hand-printed black and white photographs.
I'm also available for private commissions in all of the above as well as for large or small scale murals and tapestries as well textiles and object design.
I have been commissioned to write and illustrate for various publications, to consult on fine arts and provide art direction for film and television,corporations and individuals.

Production techniques:

New media works are challenging the established notions about what qualifies as fine art.
It has been argued that the introduction of the camera led directly to the birth of modern art.
It is exciting to consider what may be stimulated by the introduction of the computer.
As a digital fine artist myself I consider the computer as valuable a medium of expression a as an easel, kiln or darkroom. Digital media also compliments my ongoing interest in scientific themes and inspirations.
My works begin with a long process of research and thought followed by some basic work in traditional media such as sketches, paintings or photographs. These are then developed to result in a unique or limited edition, archival canvas print.
I most often add further handtreatment before stretching and framing the canvas.
My current technique involves the production of archival, limited edition, canvas, digital prints using as my source original images produced in a variety of media. The original images may be drawings, paintings, doodles or sketches as well as original photographsand found objects. The original image is scanned and then may or may not be manipulated before printing onto archival canvas. The printed canvas is then hand treated and sometimes coloured and finally coated with a clear, matt or gloss protective varnish.

Philosophy and inspirations:
The inspiration for the content of most of my work comes primarily from my keen interest in science, maths and technology. This has led to an ongoing interest in and investigation into the histories of, and relationships between, science, art, spirituality and culture. The meaning of life as explained by science and interpreted through art.
I'm very interested in exploring the implications for life on earth of our rapid technological and scientific advancement.
Genetic engineering, evolutionary medicine, nano technology and fractal geometry are just some of the fields of study that have informed my work.

When producing my images I aim to express the idea that 'medieval thought, tribal thought and modern science come together in viewing the natural world as a vast complex system of linkages'. This concept, familiar to primitive cultures, was summed up in the wise words of North American Indian chief 'Seattle' when he stated that "Everything is connected".
New discoveries in science tell us that the single cell is a temple of pluri-potentiality. Everything we do is a reflection of the separate cells whose choreographed interactions make us what we are. Life is predicated on the activities and the internal decision making process of the cells that created our biosphere.
Art can convey an innate understanding of these ideas. Art can also stimulate a symbolic system of historical reference that hits chords within all of us.

Creative science and art have much in common.'Einstein stated that "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious".The creative scientist can never know exactly what he wants or know in any precise way, how to attain it. He remains, of necessity, a" miasma of uncertainty"' - as does the artist. Both the creative scientist and the artist explore the understanding of a sensation, an emotion, a mode of presence, or project a network of experiences - the synthesis of opposing forces - demanding either emphatic attention or slowly sneaking up on the unconscious.
Art and science can also give us a sense of the unexplainable truth - a connection with something more lasting. The "mind's eye" expressing something built up from within rather than coming from without, beautifully expressed in the words of Australian mathematician, Frances Montrose when she wrote of "The desire on one hand to go on and on, to lean toward infinity. On the other hand, to be caught completed, with no more yearning."

Leonardo D Vinci wrote in his treatise on painting about what could be gained from studying stains on walls.
"We know well that sight, through rapid observation, discovers in one glance an infinity if forms; nonetheless, it can only take in one thing at a time."
In 1937 Max Ernst wrote , after reading Melzi's notes on Leonardo's treatise of painting, of "the unbearable visual obsession" that resulted, as it had also for Victor Hugo, after applying the advice of the master to the study of stains on walls. Leonardo also wrote that "Man is a model of the world" and "all that is beautiful is difficult".
I have also developed a bit of an obsession with walls and stains and share with Leo and countless others a love of the landscape - both real and imaginary - from both a macro and a micro viewpoint.
"As above, so below" - is also my understanding of the nature of the universe and I find that landscapes, especially the abstract and the surreal, can best express many of the concepts that fascinate me.
I have been basing my work on these themes since the late 80's, early 90's.
An example of this is my series of landscapes titled "Indivisible" which were a series of digital canvas prints produced from scanning small sections of original photographs taken from above of the concrete cancer at the bottom of Bondi Beach children's pool. The landscapes themselves have little resemblance to the original photographs and they have titles and a layer of meaning that refer to evolutionary forces, mitochondrial DNA and the concept of cellular memory.
Some of the books that have had a great influence on me include Italo Cavalo's 'Invisible Cities' , 'Don Qixote' by Cerevantes, Erwin Shrodinger's 'What is Life', 'Chaos-the amazing science of the unpredictable.' by James Gleick, 'The Alchemist' by Paolo Coehlo, 'Mandala' by Jose and Miriam Arguelles - Fairytales, Myths and Legends and Dr Zeuss children's books to name very few.
The plant universe and in particular the tree appears in various forms in much of my work Plants transmute light into life through photosynthesis. The human being transmutes life into consciousness through perception'The human being is the plant of consciousness.
Another of my regular motifs is "Millenium Man" which is an invented figure representing humanity and is neither male nor female despite the name and whose form was inspired by the figures in the works of New York artist Keith Harring.
As well as creating visual pleasure and wanting to entertain the viewer I aim to enable myself and others to see things in a unique way. I am interested in explorations that lead to a broadening and expansion of the five senses and of our consciousness...and in "elevating the lowly into the magnificent".
I often ponder the paradox of existence and am convinced that "It seems as if human beings are being prepared for something other than survival"
"Humanitus" is where a common language is expressed and is no where more appreciated than when it is expressed through art and science as well as through music and love.
My images are records of thoughts and experiences as well as of places and observations. They are the final result of a long process of research and investigation into the concepts and topics of interest to me at the time or simply my own intangible visceral yearnings "toward infinity".

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go the making of genius.
Love, love, love -
is the soul of genius" Mozart



Influential teachers:
Rex Dupain, John Williams, Ingeborg Theissen, Noal and Vivienne Thurgate.

Influential artists:
Picasso, Rembrandt, Giotto, Goya, Leonardo Da Vinci, Marc Chagal, Monet, Gaudi, Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamps, Mondrian, Rene Magritte, Rosalie Gascoine, Emily Kingwarre, Hans Arp, Clarice Beckett, Jasper Johns, Velasquez, Titian, Turner, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, M.C.Escher, Diane Arbis, Man Ray, Max Dupain, Fiona Hall, Bill Henson, Grace Cossington, Gustav Klimpt, Clifford Possum, Giorgio de Chirico, Sophie Taeuber, Roy Lictenstein, William Dobel, PaulKlee, Andy Warhol, Keith Harring, Brancusi, Giacometti, Christo, Ron Muik, Rodin, Richard Maplethorpe, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia and Paul Cezanne.