Jodie Hartley- BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History
Hartley is an abstract oil painter whose work seeks to evoke a sense of the beyond, creating expressive paintings that drift between representation and the dreamt. She perceives the act of painting as the pursuit of the elusive, guided by intuitive gestures that surface from the meeting of her outward environment and inner world. Working on self‑made canvases, she allows the frame to become a site of possibility.
Influenced by abstract expressionism, her practice evolves through an intrigue with process and materiality, giving rise to fields of energetic, ambiguous, and imagined forms. Her approach resonates with new‑materialist perspectives that understand matter as dynamic, enabling each painting to unfold through the interplay of intention, serendipity, and the agency of the medium. Oil holds a sensual immediacy, rendering her process vividly tangible. Through techniques such as erasure, veils of oil wash are revealed beneath, permitting light to gather across the surface and deepen its ethereal presence.
Her palette is shaped by sensory desire, with colours chosen through instinctive, felt attraction. She seeks an otherworldly, harmonic balance of colour, understanding it as a relational presence within the work. Alongside challenging her own perceptions, her paintings invite viewers into shifting states of presence, resonance, and contemplation, gently testing predispositions and expanding the boundaries of seeing.
