Sydney born artist Joanne Handley holds a Bachelor of Art Education from the City Art Institute, Sydney and a Master of Fine Arts (by Research) from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. After graduating from art school, she spent several years abroad, travelling to remote areas in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. She has lived and worked in London, the Netherlands, Israel, France and the United States.

Joanne is interested in the act of observation, in the mobility of painting to timecapsule story fragments and interpret mediated image as distilled narrative. Her recent paintings explore the emotional and psychological states of her subjects within their sociopolitical landscape .... in those personal and deeply human responses that leave us bare boned and transport us to disquieting 'in-between' places beyond our known experience - fleeting moments of human 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, University of Southern Florida, USA; Les Halles, La Frèche, France; Artists Space, New York; the Centre for Maine Contemporary Art, USA; Wollongong City Gallery; and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

In 2006, she was invited to participate in liminal personae along with artists Susan Norrie and Laurens Tan. In 2009, her work was selected for Personally Political - Contemporary Sensation, Art House Tacheles, Berlin; Deutsche Industrie Norm A4, Kulturmodell Bräugasse, Passau, Germany; Din A4 Open Files, Málaga, Spain; and as a finalist for the Phoenix Prize for Spiritual Art, SoFA Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra and the 57th Touring Blake Prize exhibition.

She is a sessional lecturer at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales where she teaches painting and drawing and has taught at several fine arts institutions in Australia and the United States, including Maine College of Art (MECA), Portland, USA; the Centre for Digital Media and Design, IIT and Illawarra Institute of Technology, Wollongong .

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