Swimmers and Bathers

Artist Statement

Joanne White is not the first artist—nor will she be the last—to feel a fascination with water and swimmers. Throughout history, painters and sculptors have felt drawn to the water element, portraying scenes of bathers in public and private settings, with the Impressionist artists particularly fond of the subject matter.

Joanne’s Swimmers & Bathers focuses on figure compositions drawn from memory and lived experience. She has a deep connection to her subjects, and her love of water was instilled at a very early age. As a lifelong swimmer, the experience of being in and around water informs the way she interprets the scene.

Working in a simplified colour palette, her paintings begin with an application of a colour ground, often a creamy light sand, alluding to beach sand and warm days. Broad sections of flattened colour and a printmaking-like approach abstract the scene, rendering the figures almost as outlines, merging with the background—shifting between reality and a memory.

Taken a step further, Joanne creates Polaroid Emulsion Lifts of her Swimmers & Bathers—a technique that involves cutting open a Polaroid, separating the thin, image-bearing emulsion layer and transferring it to a new surface—evolving them into new states. It is an experimental process, unpredictable and open to chance, yielding entirely unique works of art. These delicate images possess a translucence that mirrors the quality of water, transforming and contrasting her opaque paintings.

Through these works, Joanne depicts swimmers and bathers suspended in the moment, caught between motion and absolute stillness. They are revelling in and surrendering to the element, embodying themes from play to quiet contemplation. By blurring the lines between the physical body and the water around it, her artwork is an invitation to pause and embrace the serenity of water.