Jo Farris began her formal education at the Mississippi State College for Women painting in the realist tradition. Her studies continued at the University of South Alabama which offered her a firm understanding of abstraction. It is the marriage of these two traditions which give her current paintings an edginess with rhythm and movement--an authenticity without explicit definition. Ms. Farris asks, “How do you know if you have an impact on people? Strangers who sit at traffic lights and shoppers in stores...vThe small kindnesses and grand gestures clash with neglect and violence. How as artists do we tell that story? It is that paradox that informs my work. I merge form and content to tell this story of shadow people...of those known and unknown.”