Jo Volley is an artist who studied as both graduate and undergraduate at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, from 1972 to 1977 where she has been a Senior Lecturer since 1986 and an Acting Head since 2016. She is also the Co-Director of the Material Research Project and Director of the Material Museum at the Slade. In 2009 she was elected a brother of the Art Workers Guild and served on the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England Appointments Committee from 2012 to 2016. She is now a member of the Fabric Appointments Committee of Coventry Cathedral and Trustee for The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust.

A great deal of her studio time involves the investigation of methods and materials, mostly those that relate to painting, which are central to her practice. She recently completed The Pigment Timeline, a visual historical timeline of natural and manufactured colours made from 180 pigments, which were sequentially ordered chronologically, as they emerge onto the artists’ palette from the Neolithic to the contemporary era. Currently working on 3 UCL funded cross-disciplinary projects relating to pigments and colours. She is also writing The Art School Guide to Material Practice Vol I.  Recent public engagements include speaking at the Oxford University symposium Materiality of Colour and the Nigel J Seeley Memorial Lecture at the Institute of Sustainable Heritage.