Claudia Figueiredo views an exhibition dedicated to a special artist

One unique aspect of Oxford is that wherever you are, it is only a five-minute walk into unspoilt nature. Up Iffley Road from The Plain is Aston’s Eyot, translated roughly as East Town’s small river island. It was here that artist Jo Stannard (1975-2014), and her brother Nick, played as children and named it K-I-T (Kids Invincible Territory). To locals it’s Iffley Fields. This wild haven served Jo later as a source of inspiration in her art practice which is characterised by interests in philosophy, nature and mathematics.

Jo Stannard made a significant impact on the Oxford art scene throughout her life; she was persistent in producing an uncompromising body of work characterised by originality and sensitivity. Jo was a long-term member of Magdalen Road Studios and from there embarked on an ambitious series of site specific installations in Oxford and Bonn.

She died aged 38, after a long battle with mental illness.

A retrospective of Jo’s work, curated by friend and fellow artist Julian Dourado, is at the Old Fire Station. It reflects on Jo’s highly conceptual practice which found its strongest and most vivid realisation in drawing and paintings that bear testament to her unique appreciation of the inherent integrity and elegance of natural and mathematical forms.

Jo graduated in 1998 from Winchester School of Art with a first class honours degree in Textile Art. Her unique talent was to achieve an elegant symbiosis between the tactile visual interest of surface textures, existing in harmony, with her systematic and highly stylised patterning of environments and ideas. A timeline leads the viewer through Jo’s artistic practices detailing site-specific installations in Oxford and Bonn, some of which were created when she was artist-in-residence at the Old Fire Station, and the building was occupied by OVADA, up until her later Drawings of Iffley Fields using paint. “Jo didn’t train as a painter, so felt she did not have ownership of the title,” says Julian.

Wheel of the Year, 2007-2010, is part of a series of 24 bold abstract collages. Each board refers to a specific Neo Pagan Festival and demonstrate Jo’s individual meticulous developmental practice. Jo was an artist who acted with complete integrity for her chosen subject matter, observing the evolving environment of Iffley Fields, including sketchbooks containing hundreds of colour-swatches.

This systemised process of classifying colours enabled Jo to document faithfully the vivid diversity of the natural environment, with minimal reliance on a figurative approach, ultimately creating a body of work that is immediately familiar, yet sensorily beguiling. Contrasting with the collaged drawings are six much larger monochrome drawings, Jo’s later works — an untitled series of pen and ink drawings on paper. These black and white pieces are richly textured and heavily worked in a variety of technical ways, demonstrating Jo’s talent and expertise within simple media.

The array of mark-making invokes a sense of immediacy to the surface texture. This almost impressionistic presentation of natural forms is carefully controlled within beautifully realised compositional elements that provide a harmonious balance between intense visual interest and formal design Juxaposed with familiar forms of nature are Jo’s synaesthetic prime number drawings, some of the last works she made. At the core of Jo’s belief that mathematical patterns underpin nature, watercolour, pencil on paper, circles of innocuous pastel shades conceal Jo’s urgency to resolve nature’s secrets.

The retrospective demonstrates the artist’s core practice of site, and investigation into natural forms, leaving the viewer wondering how Jo Stannard’s legacy will surely inform future art practices.

Jo Stannard: Retrospective
Gallery at the Old Fire Station, Oxford
Tuesday-Saturday until January 24