Joanna Lawton is an artist primarily working with clay from her studio in Dover Tasmania. Her artwork aims to re-enchant and remythologise the everyday, from the painted people in her imaginary world to the wild landscapes of far southern Tasmania.

Joanna uses the flotsam and jetsam from the tideline on her walks to work collaboratively and intuitively with clay to tell a unique story of place. Sticks, stones, feathers, bones and seaweed are the tools and talismans, the fragments that tell their stories of the wild places: underwater worlds, forests, islands, mountains, sea and sky. This work includes the seaweed project where the aim is to record as many species as possible from the biodiverse and yet fragile underwater ecosystems.

In contrast, the fairytales of Joanna’s imaginary world are about culture - about the stories women tell themselves and the stories we need to hear. Reflecting on culture and women’s lives each piece playfully tells its own story and she likes to think they find the person who needs to hear it. This tableware is wheel thrown and individually hand painted and it is designed to bring some magic into everyday objects and rituals.

Joanna won the Huon art prize in 2013, 2020 and 2023 and received a grant from arts Tasmania for the development of the “Seaweed project” a 120 piece collection, which was exhibited in 2023 as part of the International seaweed symposium.