Jo Roets

Light relief sculptor working with self drying stone clay.

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Capetonian Jo Roets is a passionate sculptor, painter and mould maker.

Art has always been a central theme in Jo’s life and art practices are interwoven in her education and professional careers.

She calls her clay artworks ‘light relief sculptures’. The way Jo uses the medium is unique. The artworks are created from self-drying natural stone clay, which is rolled out to a paper-thin thickness to create delicate bass relief sculptures. Using unusual sculpting tools such as toothpicks and needles, she scores the damp surface with indents, holes and incisions. Part of her creative challenge is to push the medium to its breaking point, encouraging it to warp in the process. This warping quality is unique to the each artwork and unplanned.

Her school years included Sculpture and Ceramics at P.J. Olivier art school in Stellenbosch. A Diploma in Art Direction for film and television as well as an Advanced Diploma in Motion Picture Production Design lead her to the film industry where she worked as an artist in the art department. She also had a full-time senior lecturing career, lecturing in painting, prosthetics, special effects, props fabrication, sculpting, mould-making and casting at a multimedia film school. In 2017 she became a full time artist. In 2018, Jo’s work was selected for three prominent art competitions: Sasol New Signatures, Pretoria Art Museum (finalist); Tollman Bouchard Finlayson Art Award Barrel Head Exhibition, Hermanus (finalist) and Vuleka, Art.B Gallery, Bellville (finalist).

She was announced as the winner of the inaugural StateoftheART Gallery Award in 2018. In 2021, Jo was announced as one of the Tollman Bouchard Finlayson Art Award winners as well as an awardee of the coveted international Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant. She had her first solo exhibition in 2019 at StateoftheART Gallery and her second solo at Artbox Gallery and Rust-en-Vrede gallery in 2022. Her work is widely exhibited in South Africa and currently in Spain. Her work has also been exhibited at festivals around South Africa. These include, KKNK, Tulbagh Arts Festival, Hermanus FynArts Festival and US Woordfees.

Jo is a hectically busy artist. Where we can, we will notify you of exhibitions taking place so you can view her work. Alternately, you may email her.

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Jo Roets

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