For correspondence, please contact me at jodee_joan@yahoo.com

My practice examines how women’s well-being has been honored, dismissed, and mythologized across cultures. Drawing on a multi-faith and international upbringing, I trace overlooked forms of care that sit outside the boundaries of sanctioned science. The works emerge from flotsam collected in free dives, transformed into polychromatic mixed-media altars. Departing from baroque aesthetics, these assemblages allegorically propose forms of love and care often withheld from women.

Jo Gamel lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She holds a BFA from Moore College of Art & Design. Gamel has exhibited her work internationally at institutions such as the Louvre (Paris, during Paris+ Art Basel), Chelsea Old Town Hall (London, during London Art Week), the European Museum of Modern Art (Barcelona), and Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. She received the Excellence in Painting Award from Moore, which supported her travel to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she studied Eastern Baroque architecture. She is an alumnus of the residency program Governor’s School of the Arts. Her work is held in private collections in Seattle, Portland, L.A., New York CIty, Philadelphia, Ankara, Stockholm and Gothenburg; and has been featured in Create Magazine, a two-page spread in Killer Magazine, and on the full-color front page of the Salem Sunbeam newspaper. Gamel has received several honors, including the Women in Art Excellence Award from Artio Gallery in London, the Excellence in Painting Award, and First Place and Best in Show at the Art Is Cool contest.