Joanna Jowett West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

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Joanna Jowett is a Leeds-based artist working across photography, printmaking, artist publishing and text. Her work explores memory, matrescence, grief and our relationship with the natural world, with a focus on the quiet, tender and vulnerable parts of being human. She is a member of Leeds Print Workshop & Aire Street Darkroom and is co-director of COPY, an artists' publishing platform.

I'm interested in what happens when we slow down enough to really notice what's changing around us and within us.

My work begins with paying attention: to the changing seasons, the plants growing nearby, the weather, the rhythms of family life, and the quiet moments that often pass unnoticed. I bring these observations together with my own experiences of motherhood, grief and memory, building up layers of image, text and material that reflect a particular moment in time.

Working across photography, printmaking, artist publishing and poetry, I use making as a way of thinking. Rather than trying to preserve or explain experience, I'm interested in creating space to sit alongside it. Many of my projects evolve slowly over months or years, allowing ideas to emerge through repetition, editing and careful observation. Artist books are central to my practice because they allow photographs, poems and printed material to exist in conversation, creating intimate spaces where different narratives can unfold together.

The natural world is an important collaborator in my work. Plants, light and seasonal change are not simply subjects to be recorded but active participants in the making process. Whether working with cameraless photography, botanical materials or handwritten text, I am drawn to processes that embrace change, impermanence and chance. Some works fade, some remain, reminding us that not everything needs to be fixed in order to be meaningful.

Alongside my studio practice, I increasingly create opportunities for others to explore these questions collectively. Projects such as 'Tender Archives' extend my own artistic enquiry into shared spaces, inviting participants to notice, make and reflect together. I am currently seeking funding to continue this work with project partners including National Poetry Centre and East Leeds Project, LS14 Trust, working collaboratively with parents and bereaved adults. These co-created projects have the same question as the starting point: how can creativity help us pay closer attention to the lives we are already living, and what becomes possible when we take the time to notice?