Upcoming: The Mysteries: Joanna Whittle

September 25 - October 28, 2026

  • Cactus Moon Studio is delighted to present The Mysteries, an online solo exhibition by Joanna Whittle. Launching on 27th October, the exhibition brings together a new body of paintings in which marquees, shrines and gateways stand deserted in the landscapes, structures caught between habitation and ruin that conceal as much as they reveal.

     

    There’s something eerie about the marquees in Joanna Whittle's exhibition The Mysteries. They just stand there, in dank surrounds, uninhabited and silent. You might hesitate before going inside, because, while the pale fabric is rendered in luxuriant ruched folds, the interiors are in darkness, apart from a cryptic red glow. You can imagine people would have been gathering inside in a genial cacophony of voices and movement. But now, its purpose fulfilled, the structure remains – with the surrounding landscape poised to reclaim it from its starring role in a social occasion. What remains here, once everybody has gone home? “What if we try to stay in that place?” Whittle asks.

     

    To learn more about The Mysteries, please enquire via the link below:

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    • Joanna Whittle Threshold (Fire), 2026 Oil on canvas 13 x 18 cm. / 5.1 x 7.1 in. Photo credit: Jules Lister
      Joanna Whittle
      Threshold (Fire), 2026
      Oil on canvas
      13 x 18 cm. / 5.1 x 7.1 in.
      Photo credit: Jules Lister
      Enquire
    • Joanna Whittle Forest Shrine (Passing Place), 2026 Oil on cradled copper 21 x 15 cm. / 8.3 x 5.9 in. Photo credit: Jules Lister
      Joanna Whittle
      Forest Shrine (Passing Place), 2026
      Oil on cradled copper
      21 x 15 cm. / 8.3 x 5.9 in.
      Photo credit: Jules Lister
      Enquire
  • Joanna Whittle, b. 1974, Lusaka, Zambia

    Joanna Whittle

    b. 1974, Lusaka, Zambia

    Joanna Whittle (b. 1974, Lusaka, Zambia) creates small scale and miniature paintings of transient, fragile structures in unpeopled landscapes. Assembled remembered places, fragments of other paintings and pur invention, they are rendered in meticulous detail which makes these impossible worlds seem real. Rooted in Romantic painting, the works question its language and our precarious place in the landscape, while holding on to its potential as shelter against the dark.

     

    Whittle's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions Lost Territories at Gramercy Park Studios, London (2024) and On Shifting Ground at Whitaker Museum, Lancashire (2023). She has exhibited in group exhibitions including Don't Lets Ask For The Moon at Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2025), Arcadia for All? at Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester (2023), VOLTA Basel at Messe Basel, Basel (2023) and Reclaiming the Landscape, Saatchi Gallery (2023) among others.

     

    Her work is held in public collections including Contemporary British Painting, the Drogheda Public Collection, Ireland, and the National Fairground and Circus Archive. Whittle was awarded the New Light Prize, Valeria Sykes Award (2020) and the Contemporary British Painting Prize (2019). She has been shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize (2025, 2023, 2018) and was a recipient of the Freelands Artist Programme residency at Site Gallery, Sheffield and London (2019–2022). She has recently curated the exhibition Unquiet Landscapes, a collaboration between Contemporary British Painting and Yorkshire Artspace (2025). Whittle co-founded the curatorial project Heavy Water Collective with Maud Haya-Baviera and Victoria Lucas, which has undertaken research residencies across UK archives and curated Gathering Landscapes at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield (2025).

     

    View the artist's CV here