Biography

Jennifer Croom is an artist born and bred in Melbourne. After some years overseas in her 20’s she returned to Australia and saw the country in a new and brilliant light. She began landscape painting with a passion, winning numerous awards and prizes for her work.

But all stages eventually become preludes to the next.

‘I had a small break from painting then realised that as much as I loved them, I wanted to paint something other than beaches or gum trees.
For some time I’d been fascinated by abstract work. And so, enjoying the smell of oil paints again, I explored and played and tried to analyse why I liked some abstracts and not others. But by 2008 faces and figures had appeared within abstract shapes. This became hugely enjoyable, creating abstracted human forms without reference to realistic colours or shapes. Again, this was a fortunate period with public recognition of my work.

And this led to the next and current stage: one where the challenge is to paint a person as to appear real, and yet to keep a painterly surface. Photo realism is not my aim. I want the paint itself to have a presence, and to be part of the pleasure of the creation and the viewing. But I try to do more than create a surface in that I want to convey feeling to the viewer. I’m hoping that viewers might see a new painting and yet feel something relatable or recognisable. Human beings have emotions, and I want to engender some of that. Hard to do, but sometimes magic happens!

Currently I’m combining acrylic paint with collaged materials, using them to create texture and contrast rather than for any image they might display, as well as charcoal, pencil and oil pastels. Some of these materials smudge or disappear in places under subsequent layers, but that only adds to a final intriguing surface. What we see then may show more than one painting on the canvas (I often overpaint if not pleased with a painting) as well as the many marks of creation. The surface will show the history of the canvas.

There is so much more in colour, texture and mark making to explore, so many ideas yet to try that it’s not surprising my favourite place to be is in the studio, with time to load up my palette and paint!