Jo Lankester is a printmaker who lives and works in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking in 1994 at the Victorian College of the Arts and subsequently moved to Townsville in 1998. In 2000, Jo established Jo Lankester Limited Edition Print Studio T/A Brush & Press Studio, which she still operates today. She has held various employment roles in Townsville including in the Printmaking Department at James Cook University; Casual lecturer, James Cook University; and several positions at Gallery Services, Townsville City Council, including her current position of Collection Management Officer. To date Jo has held six solo exhibitions, and. She is also the recipient of numerous awards and grants and has undertaken over ten commissions, residencies and curatorial projects.
Lankester creates impressive and ravishing prints about the landscape. Her work is powerfully evocative, exuding emotion, memory and a sense of place. For Lankester, the natural environment is a constant source of inspiration providing an endless supply of subjects including found objects, natural forming patterns, textures and colours that translate beautifully through a multitude of printmaking techniques. Lankester seeks out the many stories the landscape has to be told and expresses them in detailed and multi-textured unique state prints. She explores ideas of experience, recollections, and elements of the landscape which convert to colour, line, texture, and form. Her work is specifically inspired by her local regions’ dry and wet tropical landscape, extending west of Townsville to Charters Towers, Magnetic Island, and as far North as Weipa.
She is represented in the National Gallery of Australia Prints and Drawings collection, Art Bank, Artspace Mackay, Canson, Camberwell Grammar School, Grafton Regional Gallery, Lake Macquarie Art Gallery, Presbyterian Ladies College, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Print Council of Australia Archive, Shelford Girls Grammar, State Library of Queensland, State Library of Victoria, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Westbourne Grammar City of Yarra, Douro Museum Printmaking Collection Portugal as well as in private collections throughout Australia and overseas.
