Artist profile
Jackie
Anderson
Jackie Anderson is a New Zealand born mixed media artist working from her sunny home studio in Newcastle, Australia. She studied visual arts, majoring in painting at the University of Auckland before embarking on travel and adventure abroad.
Inspired by her coastal surroundings Jackie translates impressions of the environment around her into beautifully layered abstract paintings. She is a colour driven creative and her practice explores new ways of interpreting both built and natural landscapes into abstract form.
Jackie’s work is characterised by her confident use of colour, abstract shapes and expressive marks. Her paintings are vivid and bold yet on closer inspection reveal subtle details which provoke thought and wonder, opening the viewer to create their own personal story and narrative. She paints intuitively and blurs the line between past and present, real and imagined.
Her true passion has always been abstract art and while her work is at times representational, abstraction is what fuels her creative practice. Every piece she makes starts out purely abstract and then more often than not morphs into something tangible during the making process.
Her work is held in private collections around Australia, New Zealand and America.
Career Highlights
- Winner Jumbled Art Superstar 2019
- Finalist Fishers Ghost Art Award 2020 + 2022
- 8 page feature article published in Swell Magazine 2021
Artist Interview
What medium do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
Acrylic is my primary medium as I enjoy its fast drying capabilities. My works are usually multi-layered so I want to be able to work back into the surface as soon as possible. I also like to incorporate drawn aspects into the compositions with crayon, pastel, pencil and ink.
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
I always start with a coloured ground but with no preconceived ideas on what I’m going to create. The first layer is completely free and spontaneous, generally loose lines and swathes of colour and gestural marks. The following layers are more considered as I start to work on the overall composition. My approach is intuitive and I always work on several surfaces at a time creating a conversation between each other and a cohesive body of work as a whole.
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
My home studio is a colour cave just a hop, skip and jump across the back lawn. I’ve painted the floor a soft blush pink and every other surface white and installed a big comfy armchair in the corner. I try to get into the studio everyday (even at the weekends) I’m not always painting but sitting and pondering or moving work around are all important to my process and help me stay connected to my art practice.
