Jo Olive is a multidisciplinary artist and designer living and working on Bundjalung Country in Northern New South Wales, Australia.

Her practice spans printmaking, letterpress, collage, and text-based works, often drawing on a minimalist aesthetic and a deep engagement with language, texture, and materiality. Rooted in an ethos of restraint, imperfection, and authenticity, Jo’s work explores emotional states, fragments of thought, and quiet resistance — preferring the evocative over the ornamental, and the meaningful over the merely beautiful.

After running a combined retail and studio space for 18 months, Jo recently took a sabbatical to recalibrate and refocus her creative energy. This period of stillness and reflection has laid the groundwork for a new project to be launched in 2025, one that builds on her enduring interest in handmade processes, poetry, and the tactile beauty of paper.

With a background in letterpress printing and bookbinding, Jo’s work often hovers between the visual and the literary, inviting pause and contemplation. Whether through bold typographic posters, meditative collages, or quietly powerful stationery, her pieces speak to the enduring value of craft, the poetry of imperfection, and the possibility of art as a slow and meaningful practice.

‘Jo Olive’s work is visual poetry. Her celebrated appreciation of language and the visual beauty of writing/typography in and of itself is what I have always appreciated in her work. A Jo Olive piece often provides movement, texture and untamed gestures. A beautiful offering with gentle insights and meaningful moments for the viewer’
Daphne Day*