Josephine was born in Den Haag in January 1956. Her family were no strangers to art. Her grandfather was Matthias Hage a well-known painter who lived and worked around Laren from the twenties to the fifties. His uncles were the famous Maris brothers of the Hague School whose works feature in collections worldwide.
Josephine started her training in Holland in the seventies and after a move to Aberdeen to live and study, finished it at Gray's School of Art where she graduated MA in 1984. It was also there she met her husband, artist Tim Pomeroy. They have two children. Saskia who is at Glasgow School of Art continuing the family tradition and Christian, who at time of writing wants to become an aeronautical engineer.
The family are settled on the Isle of Arran where they have a large studio on their eight-acre smallholding. The garden and livestock are important to Josephine's sense of harmony in life. She divides her time evenly between family, garden and art. She has exhibited her work in many galleries and is a past first prizewinner of Aberdeen Artists annual exhibition. She has recently been represented by Andrew Gold in Edinburgh and is preparing a one-woman show in the Carby Gallery in Aberdeen for Autumn 2004

Notes on the work:

Josephine's early paintings were concerned with personal issues. These pictures were characterised by elongated figures floating in the air or engaged in undramatic activity; combing hair, looking in a mirror, stroking the ever-present dog (Roetje). As time went on these pictures changed. A move to Lanarkshire made for paintings examining the surrounding kames and woods. Many of the drawings of this time have a sureness of tone and an angularity which is perhaps the first hint of the formality to come in the later collages. Slowly the paintings began to concentrate more on the organised formality of the still life. These were celebrated in a series of exhibitions in both Scotland and Holland.

Interlude at the Lee:

From 1988 to 1993 Josephine helped finance her life as an artist by working for the Baron of Lee castle near Lanark. The works made during this time are too many to list here. Suffice it to say that Josephine carried out major mural, portrait and interior décor schemes. Among the memorable works are the Bannockburn mural in the ballroom, the four life-sized portraits of the Baron and Lady Patricia and the Celtic murals in the private chapel.

Community work:

At the same time Josephine was painting portraits and teaching art evening classes for Clydesdale District Council. Though she taught mainly drawing and painting her interests in fabric and material came in very handy. Her teaching experience is beautifully represented by the community wall hanging in Carnwath Hall, Lanarkshire. Evidence of Josephine's involvement in the communities around Lanark is there for the discovering. All this time Josephine continued to paint on her own paintings persistently keeping busy and alive both in the studio and in her much-loved garden. Anyone who knows Josephine knows how much love and attention she lavishes on her garden. No less care goes into everything she paints…or collages which takes us onto another stage of her development.

Collages and beyond:

In 1997 the family moved to the Isle of Arran of Scotland's west coast. After working with the Arran primary schools on a particular project based on the Highland Clearances, Josephine produced the collage, Scottish Landscape. The direct approach of the cut paper gave a directness of composition and a surety of tone, which continues into the works of today. She started by making collages. Then she used the collages as sketches for larger paintings and that off and on continues to be her working method. Her most recent paintings use found objects on the beach. Shells, pieces of broken pottery or crockery. Like the collage-based pictures the objects inhabit a vague or deliberately non-specific space. They are real objects in suggested interiors drawn fully in the round or left slightly ghost-like painted lines. In either case colours are subtle and sensitive, tonality is sure. There are not always deeper messages to be had but the spectator neglects to look for them at his or her own ………Moths become metaphors for the search for inner light or the trapped soul longing to fly without the confines of the body. The diving gannets based on observation from her house have a simplicity and lethality that no amount of modelling could enhance. The irises growing by the shoreline are unaware of the almost invisible jet crossing the sea in the distance behind them. As in life, there is much to see beyond the obvious.

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CV

1956 Born DenHaag
1977-81 Academy for visual arts, Rotterdam
1982-84 Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen
1984 qualified BAhons
1984 first prizewinner Aberdeen Artists
1989-96 Lee Castle artworks
1996 & 1999 murals for Drumclog Heritage Centre


One-woman exhibitions

1987 Abtswoude Gallery, Delft, Netherlands
1988 Koffie shop Kleiweg, Delft, Netherland
1989 Town Hall, St Annaparochie, Netherlands
1990 Motherwell Library, Scotland
2002 Workhouse Gallery, King's Road, London
2003 Netherlands Consulate, Edinburgh
2004 Netherlands Consulate, Aberdeen

Selected Group exhibitions
1983 Aberdeen Artists
1984 RSA
1984 Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1985 Aberdeen Artists (first prize-winner)
1986 RGI
1987 Muller pier Rotterdam
1988 Hamilton Museum
1993 SSA
1997-04 Studio 4, Lamlash, Isle of Arran
2000 Burnside Gallery, Arran
2000-02 Gold Gallery, Edinburgh
2001 Gatehouse gallery, Glasgow

Private mural and portrait commissions from 1992-2001