JoWonder, born Joanna Woodward, has a multidisciplined artistic practice, she is a British painter, avant-garde stopmotion animator, performance artist and writer. She is noted for being from a generation of British avant-garde animators such as Brothers Quay and David Anderson. They made/make work which brings concepts from postmodern literature, the surrealist movement, and contemporary art to cinema. Her films, which use collage, textured painting, and text, provide counterpoint between the metaphysical and the playful. Lilliputian characters are often introduced to an apocalyptic realm ruled by giants. Her work combines religious, political, fairy-tale, and scientific themes using satire and symbolism.^[1][2]

She made her first commissioned short film, Sawdust for Brains and the Key of Wisdom, for Channel 4 Television in the 1990s.

She was educated at St Martins School of Art and National Film and Television School.

In 1990 her animated film The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp^[3] using stop frame animation won the Grand Prize at Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film, the Direction Award for best first animated film at the British Animation Awards^[4] and the Time Out Film Award. It was also a part of Between Imagination and Reality,^[5] a programme of film and video selected by Tilda Swinton.

According to Jonathon Romney of Sight and Sound Magazine 1992 volume 2 issue 7

"The Brooch Pin lends itself to being read as a male nightmare, but that is certainly where the resonances lie. "

Expo Director Amanda Casson of the Creative Review called The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp "an impressive short".

In 2007, her video installation Flatlanders, expressing a judgement of the scale of ambition of science at CERN,^[6] was featured in Guildford Cathedral in connection with a science debate organised by Surrey University called Is science the new religion? attended by Jim Al-Khalili and Dr Brian Cox. The subject was based around the nuclear experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

One of her ongoing projects is 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia,^[7] research funded by The Wellcome Trust^[8] and with a microbiology input by Dr Simon Park^[9] of Surrey University. Under The Microscope^[10] is an interpretation of Ophelia painted out of bacteria that incorporates messages to Ophelia from the public as part of the soundscape.^[11]

She has also been active as a performer. Her avant-garde performance art has included working within the experimental the Washroom Collective,^[12] which typically involves improvisation and audience interaction.

2012, May 2012,JoWonder and the Psychic Tea Leaves a site-specific 45-minute performance in the tradition of a Victorian seance, using the supernatural as subject performed at the belfry of St Johns on Bethnal Green, part of First Thursdays organised by Whitechapel Art Gallery.^[13]

2019, September, The Woven Plait of Beatrice a part of a site-specific event The Woven with seven multidisciplinary artists and musicians inspired by the unique heritage of St Leonard's, Shoreditch. 2020 further developed as an experimental performance video.^[14]

2023, May 6, she performed a site-specific piece as a part of 'L'Age d'Or' a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan , to celebrate the film L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali The film explores themes such as: humanization, destruction, confusion, passion, fear, oppression and isolation. Jowonder’s performance took place over the weekend of the coronation of Charles III in the Uk; incorporating a mock coronation of a person dressed as a monkey. The exhibition brought together forty international artists to reflect on the question: What would Buñuel’s L'Age d'Or look like today? ^[15]

• 1980 The Grid starring Peter Murphy (musician). A New Contemporaries Prize Winner 1981, painting shown the same year. ^[16]
• 1985 The Hump Back Angel^[17]
• 1986 Two Children Threatened by a Nightingale
• 1989 The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp (short) - NFTS.^[18] Live action and stop frame puppet animation: with renowned performance artist Rose English
• 1991 The Weatherhouse with IOU Theatre
• 1992 Sawdust for Brains and the Key of Wisdom^[19] (short) - Channel 4 Television^[20]
• 1997 The Cat
• 1998 Don't Submit to a Moments Passion with a Stranger
• 2004 Walking
• 2006 6 Days Goodbye Poems of Ophelia
• 2007 Flatlanders
• 2020 The Storyteller

In 2008, she set up British Women Artists (BWA), without government or arts establishment funding, using the scope of the internet to form an online portfolio of both known and unknown artists. In 2019 BWA became a (2008-2019) archive for women artists any nationality working in the UK; forming an alternative grassroots record of UK artistic practice establishing the group within reach of history.

• State of the Art - Channel 4, 1993 ^[21]
• Moving Pictures - BBC, 1993

2020-2021, painting of Christine Keeler shown as a part of 'Dear Christine' an Arts Council of Great Britain group exhibition, curated by Fionn Wilson; re-framing the life of Christine Keeler </ref> https:// https://internationaltimes.it/dear-christine/</ref>

2023, 5–7 May; paintings; including a depiction of Liz Truss being abducted by fairies*, and Xi Jinping having breakfast with his dog, shown as a part of L'Age d'Or, a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan. The exhibition celebrated the surrealist film: L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali. The L'Age d'Or exhibition and event took place at the Crypt Gallery St Pancras New Church,^[15][22][23]

Liz Truss being abducted by fairies* 'Abduction of the Sleeping Prime Minister' was also shown in the London Biannale 2023,^[23] https://internationaltimes.it/the-abduction-of-the-sleeping-prime-minister/</ref>