Jo Whitney was born in Essex. From 1961 to 1963 she studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art in Oxford. This was followed by a year at the Sir John Cass College in London. Inspired by Bonnard, Vuillard and Sickert, Jo began her artistic career as a figurative and portrait painter, later developing her skill at representing the city scenes and landscapes she encountered both at home and during extensive travels abroad.

In 1967 she moved to east Cornwall, where she spent the next twenty years. During this time she exhibited at the Bay Tree Gallery in Liskeard and several other mid-Cornwall galleries.

In 2014 Whitney returned to east Cornwall after 15 years living and working in Scotland, where her work was shown in a number of solo exhibitions. Her paintings have been included in the Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Gallery in London, and also the National Pastel Society annual exhibition.

A number of her portraits are held in private collections in the UK and abroad.

In 2012 a retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, which included a 1990s sketch of Fred YATES.