Sydney born artist Joanne Handley works across media including painting, drawing and digital processes. Her work explores the emotional and psychological stories of her subjects within their socio-political landscape and addresses issues of human connectedness, denial and loss of innocence. She is interested in the personal responses that leave us bare-boned and transport us to disquieting in-between places beyond our known experience - moments of fragility, vulnerability and resilience.

Joanne has held solo shows in Australia and the United States and participated in numerous international group exhibitions and projects. Her work has been shown at venues including the New York Hall of Science, New York; the Contemporary Art Museum at the Institute for Research in Art, USF, USA; Dynamic International Museum of Contemporary Art, Belforte del Chienti, Italy; Artists Space, New York; the Centre for Maine Contemporary Art, USA; Wollongong City Gallery; Macquarie University Gallery; Gallery 4a Asia-Australia Arts Centre and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

In 2009, her work was selected for Personally Political - Contemporary Sensation, Art House Tacheles, Berlin; Deutsche Industrie Norm A4, Kulturmodell Bräugasse, Passau, Germany; as a finalist for the Phoenix Prize for Spiritual Art, SoFA Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra and the 57th Touring Blake Prize exhibition. In 2008/9, with the assistance of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, she produced a series of work about personal loss and suppression during the March 16 2008 uprising at Amdo Ngaba, Sichuan Province, Tibet. In 2006 her work featured in the liminal personae exhibition along with artists Susan Norrie and Laurens Tan.

Joanne studied painting at the Alexander Mackie CAE, graduating with Bachelor of Art Education from the (then) City Art Institute, SCAE. In 2004 she completed a Master of Fine Arts at COFA, University of New South Wales for which she undertook research in the United States. She currently teaches painting and drawing at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW and has served on the faculty of several fine arts institutions in Australia and the United States including Maine College of Art, Portland, USA; the Centre for Digital Media and Design, IIT and Illawarra Institute of Technology, West Wollongong.

Joanne Handley's work is held in private and public collections nationally and internationally.