Jo Westgate trained at Manchester and Sheffield Polytechnics, graduating with first class honours, and later at Chelsea School of Art, where she gained an MA, specialising in Fine Art Printmaking.
Living in rural Northumberland with her husband and two daughters, Jo Westgate works from an etching studio at home. Using a range of printmaking techniques and drawing, her work is based on landscape and domestic interiors. Human presence is implied by patterns and textures in cultivated farmland and gardens, and by the detail of everyday objects. She also teaches and works to commissions. A passionate enthusiast for quality of materials and advocate for observation drawing, Jo has exhibited widely, and to some acclaim, since leaving Chelsea School of Art in 1988. More recently, an important part of her work has been a 'visual diary': a daily drawing forming an intimate catalogue of life with two small children.
