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NEW WILTSHIRE MUSEUM EXHIBITION CELEBRATES LOCAL WILDLIFE ARTIST
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‘Joanna May’s Love Letter to Wiltshire’ will be on display in spring 2023...
he creative work of Wiltshirebased wildlife artist, author and conservationist Joanna May will be celebrated in a new exhibition that is set to run at the Wiltshire Museum early next year.
Recognised and collected widely, Joanna has a listing in ‘Who’s Who In Art’, her hare paintings have featured on BBC Springwatch and she has paintings at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Raymond Blanc’s famous hotel near Henley.
‘Joanna May’s Love Letter to Wiltshire’ collection will be displayed at the Devizes-based museum between March and June 2023. It will be a celebration of the artist’s commitment to capturing the region’s wildlife and recognition of her work in the county throughout the past two decades.
In 2019, the artist published The Hare on the Moon, an extraordinary illustrated puzzle book with a difference. The book takes readers on a journey of discovery through a series of hare paintings based upon spiritual landmarks in her home county of Wiltshire - including
Joanna is known globally for her contemporary paintings of hares, leopards, zebras, lions and tigers. Her original works sell at up to £15,000, with paintings gracing the homes of celebrities and sold at Christies’.
"The centrepiece for the exhibition will be a commissioned artwork which will depict ‘The Moonraker myth’"
Joanna May has been a wildlife artist for more than 20 years
Stonehenge, Avebury stone circle and Westbury white horse, as well as the zodiac. The book, which has delighted readers and art-lovers alike, tells the story of a Wiltshire hare who gives her life for a stranger. In return she becomes the hare on the moon and, in order, to return to Earth she has to undertake a series of tasks. Each task unlocks the key to the next one and her final destination leads the code breaker back to hidden treasure – and the hare back to Wiltshire. The planned exhibition of the local artist’s exquisite work and fine attention-to-detail is sure to be a big attraction when it is unveiled at the Wiltshire Museum next spring. Joanna May, artist and conservationist, told us: "I am excited to say I am planning to produce some new paintings, especially for the exhibition, on crop circles and indigenous wildlife to include - hares, foxes, hedgehogs and owls. The centrepiece for the exhibition will be a commissioned artwork which will depict ‘The Moonraker myth’ featuring the story of the moon being raked out of the local pond (The Crammer) which is part of Wiltshire’s folklore history." You can buy The Hare on the Moon book and its associated map, as well as prints and originals through her website or at Joanna's gallery in Northgate Street, Devizes. • joannamay.com THEWESTWILTSMAGAZINE 13
