Israel’s practice explores what time, material change and acts of perception do to images. Working with found imagery, obsolete image technologies and historically worn materials, she uses processes of layering, transfer, illumination and pressure to allow images to emerge gradually rather than appearing fully formed. Many of the works begin with materials already altered by age, where images have shifted, migrated or partially disappeared through use and time.
Using antique picture books, Victorian magic lantern slides, embossed objects and aged paper, Israel works with materials that already carry traces of earlier use. Separate pictorial spaces fold into one another, faint impressions surface slowly through the fabric of paper, and illuminated images appear suspended somewhere between projection and object. In some works, images only become visible through slow processes of seepage, pressure or prolonged exposure to light.
The works ask for a form of slow looking in which recognition remains partial and unstable. Images appear gradually, sometimes hovering at the edge of legibility, shaped by duration, material processes and the uncertainties of seeing.
Jo Israel lives and works in Hastings, UK.
Contact: joisraelart@gmail.com
© Jo Israel 2026