Artist Statement

As an artist I re-imagine the world how I want it to be.

My job is to plug us back in to our place in the sacred living Earth, to fall in love with life, with our bodies, and to do it through art. I’m interested in what is at the core of human experience, what connects us to our very earliest ancestors and how we are embedded in the natural world. I draw on women’s spirituality, sexuality and creativity, encompassing notions of witchcraft, sensuality and the erotic life force, looking for what is permanent and connects all life. I want people to experience the work in their bodies.

Ceramics, painting, photography, found materials, poetry, the spoken word, every medium comes at the same question from a different angle. What I can’t say with ceramics I say with paint, and what I can’t say with paint, I describe with poetry. 

I mix found materials with precious metals and stones, iridescent paint and glitter to create work with a physical, visceral impact.

Artist Bio

Originally from Cork in the Irish Republic, Jo Heckett trained at Chelsea School of Art and Brighton University where she received a BA (Hons) in 3D Design (Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics) and an MA in Therapeutic Bodywork from Westminster University. She now shares her time between her London and Irish studios.

Jo is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and poet exploring concepts such as mythological archetypes, Paganism, and themes of science and magic, all languages that aim to describe the indescribable. 

She has a background in healing and meditation and draws on her own experience of the natural world, and a fascination with the earliest people. Her mother was renowned archeologist Elizabeth Wincott Heckett.