Josie KO

Josie KO is a Glasgow based artist who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2018. Since then she has been a committee member at Transmission Gallery, worked full time at Glasgow School of Art’s Student’s Association, and has exhibited in Dundee, London and Switzerland.

Purposely working with untraditional methods and mediums (such as paper mâché, glitter and found objects), Josie KO uses these materials relegated status in the art world and mixed media techniques to present a newly reimagined depiction of the Black female body. Constructing the women with irregular limbs and glittery bodies, the work glorifies the handmade and drifts from the norms of Western art ideals. The scale of her works makes them unavoidably noticeable, counteracting the erasure of Black women in art history and Black female artists.

There is a strong sense of the artist’s self in the work, most noticeable with her casted or sculpted face, but also through the tactility of the forms, which document the signs of the artist’s hands and movement. Significantly, Josie KO has autonomy toward the work instead of simply perpetuating the racist caricature of the Mammy: she empowers her ‘ladies’ to communicate a narrative which speaks toward her own experiences of being Black British and the topic of intersectionality.