Jo Ractliffe
Jo Ractliffe (1961 - )Cape Town in South Africa is where Jo Ractliffe was born and still calls home. She completed a Masters of Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town. Jo has held a number of fellowships – amongst others – with the Royal Photographic Society in London, the Centre for Curating the Archive from the University of Cape Town, and the Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Vallais in Sierre, Switzerland. She works in photography and in a career spanning nearly four decades, Jo’s approaches to the medium have been wide. Often spaces where humans – but not their earthly traces – have vanished are shown. In these images, a surplus of meaning is portrayed that goes beyond the evidentiary. In addition to eight photo books, Jo has exhibited prolifically around the world and her work is held in a number of collections in South Africa and abroad.
