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The term Shinrin-yoku was coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in 1982, and can be defined as making contact with and taking in the atmosphere of the forest.
For me it is a recreational trip to the forest for relaxation and well-being; forest bathing.
These works are my foray into figurative landscape, a series I started in 2021 lockdown era, with more time to exploreand muse on my local forest (sans-tourists). Refreshing myself from the routines of work and an overly digital life, I needed to find that connection to nature, to breathe the life back into my spirit.
This series is about immersion, with a figure almost hidden in the foliage, sitting in relaxed postures, but deliberately looking away from the viewer. She relishes those private days, to hide, reconnect and find her centre, retracting into the forest.
I really enjoy landscape painting as I can be as abstract and loose as I want, using a quick succession of marks to build up canopies, and vibrant washes of colour to express emotional release. Art making is immersive, immediate and I often resolve work in a single session, allow the purity of the creative process to emerge. Many compositions are similar to explore a variety ways to work with the subject, try out new colourways or different ideas to resolve the final work.
My work uses colour to express emotion as much as the subject is about experience of place. I call myself a forest fauvist, an artist who continues to lose and find herself in her art and in nature.
Jacqui explores connection to place in landscapes and muses on familiar objects in still life painting. She loves native flora, birds and enjoys her forest home in the Dandenong Ranges. Influenced by fauvism and expressionism, she is known for fresh drawing and mark making, and bold contemporary colour ways in her paintings of Australian landscapes.
She has participated for 10 years in Dandenong Ranges Open Studios. Awards include a highly commended at Sorrento Art show, First prize for pastel at Emerald Art Show, First prize at Lilydale Art show for painting, commended at Sherbrooke Art Society Wildlife show. She exhibits at Melbourne art shows, local art galleries and at Up Gallery.
Jacqui also published 'Hidden in the Hills - Artists of Dandenong Ranges book in 2023. She has successfully run her micro gallery in Sassafras since 2020 and in 2023 she launched Up Gallery for our mountain artists to have a place to exhibit and collaborate.
Up Gallery acknowledges the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which we gather to share art and creative community,. We acknowledge Aboriginal connection to creative practice on these lands for more than 65,000 years and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.
Up Gallery is an artists run initiative as a not for profit association UP ARTISANS INC. A0122250U ABN 53452638663
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