Jo McLean is an artist based in Mulubinba (Newcastle), NSW. She respectfully acknowledges the Awabakal and Worimi peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which she lives and works, and honours the rich and continuing creative cultures of First Nations peoples across Australia.

Jo’s practice brings together gardening, art-making and playful experimentation including painting, installation, plant-care and facilitating participatory projects. Working with living and collected materials, she approaches art-making as a way of engaging with the world around her. Rather than imposing fixed outcomes, she allows artworks to emerge through processes of care, play, observation, and chance.

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Drawn to the notion of biophilic desire as both instinctive and romantic, Jo works with plants as both subjects and collaborators. Through her practice, she explores the complex relationships between people and the botanical world, and the ways these bonds are mediated through images, objects, stories, and symbols. Drawing, painting, gardening, and observing serve as acts of communion as much as creative expression, enabling deeper engagement with plant life. Through her work, she explores whether representations of nature can fulfil our desire to connect with plant life, and what increasingly mediated experiences of the natural world mean for our relationship with nature.

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Jo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Creative Arts) from the University of Newcastle in 2008, undertook horticultural studies at the University of Melbourne in 2019, and completed a Master of Fine Art with Distinction at RMIT University in 2024. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Newcastle, Sydney, and Melbourne, and is held in private collections within Australia and overseas.