Jovi Schnell is a Los Angeles-based artist known for her vivid semi-abstract paintings and large-scale works in public spaces. Her recent paintings explore themes of bio-enchantment, responding to subjects such as the mythical powers of Venus, the art of flower arrangement, and the iconographic Tree of Life. Growing up in a feminist utopian community in the Ozarks of Arkansas, Jovi developed a connection to nature shaped through the lens of experimental counterculture, rooted in an early cosmic wonder and deep reverence for nature. Her work continues to bloom with eco-poetic metaphors.
Inspired by Sister Corita Kent’s idea of PLORK (Play + Work), she created Anything Grows, a creative dice and card game that brings play, chance, divination, and collaboration into her painting process, an activity she dubs pictorial Space Gardening.
Jovi has received numerous grants and fellowships, including the Pollack-Krasner award for painting, Skowhegan Residency, Mc Dowell Colony, and De Ateliers studio program in Amsterdam, NL. Her work has been exhibited in many galleries and institutions, including the Stedelijk Bureau Museum in Amsterdam, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Berkeley Art Museum. Her work has received reviews in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Flash Art, and Art in America. She holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute ‘91 and an MFA from UC Berkeley in 2017.
Her professional experience includes over 15 years of art instruction at institutions including California College of Arts, San Francisco Art Institute, UC Berkeley and USC Roski School of Art. Jovi will lead her second experimental painting workshop at Anderson Ranch, Summer 2025.