About Jacquelyn Stephens
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Education
1994 - 1996
Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia
Awards
2014
Cliftons Art Prize
2000
Sally’s Paddock Acquisitive Art Prize
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Event: Still Got a Pulse
Dates: 29 Aug 2001 - 15 Sep 2001
This body of work was a further exploration of my Little Things Exhibition but on a much grander scale. I was still using fragments of newspaper images that I would put under various magnifying devices then repaint by hand. The similarity with the original image was by intense magnification only because this time the paintings were big.
Event: Little Things, TCBincArt, Melbourne.
Dates: 8 Aug 2000 - 26 Aug 2000
This was my first Solo Exhibition after Art School. It was such a buzz to put together. The series of paintings explored lines of communication and put print media under the microscope; literally…it was also very heavily influenced by POP art and Abstract Expressionism. I took tiny fragments of newspaper images after exploring them under visual devises such as magnifying glasses and microscopes; I then reproduced and manipulated the dots by hand. The paintings became these crazy clusters of rhythmic vibrating spots and dots. The paintings were all about the size of my hand except for One or two. This series was as much about seeing as it was about the process of making as well as the infinite visual possibilities contained within minute things.
Biography
I am an Australian artist who has been successfully exhibiting my paintings for over 20 years since completing a BFA in Painting at the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts. I have gained an extensive knowledge of Art, art materials, techniques and theory from working closely in the arts industries and in my own art practice. I work full time from my studio on the Melbourne fringe. I have had several successful solo and group exhibitions in commercial galleries and artists run spaces. My paintings can be seen in many media publications and are held in private collections worldwide. Many of the key themes in My work have been informed by my interest in water, nature, science and the domain of medicine.
I am interested in making paintings with their own life force, that breathe with an uplifting energy for those viewing them. The overall is aim for my artwork is to be beautiful and unique so that the paintings create stylish look on collectors walls and provide interest and joy for years to come.
Here is a bit more if you want to know more…
Painting is my lens, my looking glass, and my microscope to view and make sense of the world.
I am inspired by and celebrate the beauty of microscopic forms, the waters of life and the energies inherent in all things sub-atomic and aquatic. Spending much of my life by the sea, I can never escape the otherworldliness of the ocean and my concerns about the fragility of this environment.
My art explores a sublime of the small: Tiny fragments and patterns of life over-enlarged till there is light, colour, molecules and matter. The natural world and the all the forces that shape it inspire and astonish me. Tiny fragments and patterns of life with all the boundless chaos and order fill me with a sense of awe and wonder. Be it a flight of gulls or microscopic algae floating in a drop of seawater. I love abstracting these patterns of life, miniscule cellular formations, coral growth and sea surges, enlarging these into paintings where illusionary forms float in fields of vast space or gather in shallow unusual perspectives.
The work references other familiar characteristics of the natural world. Spinal Columns, galaxies, flower petals, atoms, molecules, drifting seaweeds, coral gardens, skins, fibres, moments of reflected light, I delight in all the varied responses the images conjure up. I intentionally make the work ambiguous and not distinctly one nameable thing or another. Rather the images to allude to real things. For me the subtle suggestion acts more powerfully as a memory trigger for recollections and reminiscences that reference our place in the fragile natural world.
