JEAN
STEWART
paintings
about
BORN/LIVES
AUCKLAND
EDUCATION
Masters of Design/Painting, 2012 (distinction)– UNITEC, AUCKLAND
Click icon to download
a copy of Jean's thesis:
The Nuances of Human Stories
and the Language of Paint.
INFLUENCES
In my life and painting practice I have been particularly influenced by modern music and the relationship that certain lyrics set against sound resonate through our lives andour conscious personal narratives. Always in my work there is an element of trying out how a painting might do the same thing. Over the years I have made paintings that operate like poems with symbolic images and compositional rhythms. I have investigated the subtle ways that a painting delivers narrative. Turning at one point to the idea that without a dictated narrative the viewer is more inclined to journey into a painting, essentially leaving space for the viewers own world and issues to enter. Lately, I have been feeling that what we most need at the moment is some clear seeing. That is what I have been attempting with the Workers in Dirt Series. Trying to see what is going on in one small vital section of society, one group perhaps where answers lie. As always the practice of painting is for me an ongoing experiment to find what aligns most closely to us living now, what matters, what resonates, reflects and comforts.
Adam Portraiture Award (Margaret Jones, above),
New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington – FINALIST(2014); Wallace Art Awards, Auckland
– (2006); Wallace Art Awards, Auckland – FINALIST (2005)
public exhibitions
The Figurative Show at the Vivian
(group exhibition), The Vivian, Matakana – one painting,
oil on canvas (2015);
Workers in Dirt
(solo exhibition), Silo 6, Auckland – twelve paintings, oil on canvas
(2014-2015);
Adam Portraiture Award
(group show), Portrait Gallery, Wellington – one (Margaret Jones, above), oil on canvas, (2014);
‘The Nuances of Human Stories
and the Language of Paint’
(solo exhibition), Te Po gallery, Auckland – eight,
oil on board paintings, (2012);
Long Black café, Unitec (group show), Auckland – six, oil
on board paintings (2011);
‘Eight New Paintings’
(solo exhibition), Synergy Gallery, Melbourne – eight,
oil on canvas paintings (2006);
Wallace Art Awards (group show), Auckland – one house paint and
oil on canvas painting (2006);
‘All the Little Monsters’
(solo exhibition), Fitzroy Gallery, Melbourne – four, acrylic and polymer paintings (2004);
‘Dilettante Savant’ (group show), Irene Studio Warehouse, Brunswick, Melbourne – one oil and acrylic painting (2004);
‘Neoteric Atmosphere’
(group show), The Foundry, Melbourne – two, oil and acrylic paintings (2004);
‘Living in this Intensity’
(solo exhibition), Synergy Gallery, Melbourne – nine acrylic and
polymer paintings (2003);
‘For Rhyme or Reason’
(solo exhibition), Room 101 Gallery, Auckland – eight acrylic and polymer paintings (2002).