Jo Peel biography in Biographies from the artzine on artrepublic.com

Jo Peel spends her time documenting in great detail her fascination with everyday scenes and scenarios. From abandoned east London construction sites to the streets of Vietnam and Bali, all are captured in her well observed and uniquely executed style.

With high profile group shows in New York and Hong Kong as well as the UK, Jo’s work is fast becoming a feature in the urban contemporary art scene. She is also a member of internationally recognised Scrawl Collective. She has also worked with other artists RYCA, David Walker, Zac Walsh, Will Barras, Stik and Static.

As well as drawings, paintings and prints Jo has designed and produced t-shirts for cult clothing label Rogue Chimp, stocked in select outlets in Tokyo and London, created bespoke murals and logos on street walls and within interiors, as well as designing and illustrating sets for photo shoots. She has also decorated rooms in the Artist Residence hotels in Brighton (which featured on Channel 5's Hotel inspector) and Cornwall.

Spotted at the Mutate exhibition in London by Tom Conran, Jo was commissioned to install her Trellick Tower artwork as a 3 meter high piece in his Deli on Portobello road and has also adorned several walls in the West End with her diggers and cranes, including a 20 foot tall painting next to Ladbrooke Grove station.

Destroy

Jo Peel’s references are predominantly from environment rather than people. She inspired by the process of change within the urban environment. A city becomes a living and breathing creature, with it’s own personality and culture. East London in particular has changed enormously over the last decade and she love to be able to document this change and live within an environment of such contrast.

In 2008 she moved to London and started making artwork full time.

Coming from Sheffield, she was always made aware of our industrial heritage and watched the city transform, as the old steel works were ripped down or re-appropriated into housing and studios, the high rise flats, built as a new type of social housing were abandoned and demolished.

Community and change alongside urban development and the human influence on our built environment inspire her. The way that city’s grow and develop is down to human Impact and political decisions and you can read a skyline to understand the history and culture of an environment.

'The process of drawing something that seems upon initial glance pretty ordinary, allows me to really get involved in the structure and notice everything about a scene. It is these details that interest me about our world and can so easily be passed by.' Jo Peel