Jenny watson australian artist portrait

Jenny Watson (b. 1951), painter and lecturer, studied painting at the NGV school and completed her Dip. Ed. in Victoria in 1973. Her first exhibition, of life-sized photorealist figurative paintings, was in Melbourne in 1973; her second, in 1974, featured horses, painted in the same style. Over the decade and into the 1980s, her paintings became deliberately childlike in style and autobiographical in content, and frequently incorporated text (and horses). From 1978 to 1984 she was a partner with John Nixon in the exhibition space Art Projects. At the same time, between 1973 and 1989, she taught privately and at various schools and colleges. Between 1973 and 2006 she held about 90 solo exhibitions and was represented in numerous group shows. She won the Portia Geach Award for 1990, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1993. In 2005 there was a retrospective of her works on fabric at Griffith University, where she has been Adjunct Professor in the Painting

•

Jenny Watson

By Laura Couttie

 | April 26, 2023

Jenny Watson is renowned for her style of post-conceptual painting, which combines whimsical images on fabric with panels of ord. She modestly describes her forty five-year career as ‘a Melbourne girl makes good story’, but the journey fryst vatten far from over. Artist Profile spoke to her about the art world, the kvinnlig perspective and the human condition.

Watson spoke to Laura Couttie in Issue 45 of Artist kontur.

Jenny, you grew up in suburban Melbourne and you have spoken about how that experience hugely influenced your practice. Now you split your time between rural Queensland and Europe. What motivated you to pursue opportunities overseas?
As a graduate in the 1970s I felt that inom was at the end of the world and certainly some foray had to be made overseas to feel you were a part of something.

You have been exhibiting overseas for twenty-eight years now. What have you learnt about yourself as a person an

•

Jenny Watson is a leading Australian artist whose conceptual painting practice spans more than four decades. Inspired by both punk and feminism, Watson’s readily recognised autobiographical and fictional features combine colour, fabric, text, recurring figures and subtle humour to create a powerful narrative. Though deliberately naïve in style the paintings are acerbic in their emotional detail; a signature, rudimentary expressionistic style that Watson continues to master since her strategic abdication of realism in the 1970s. Watson’s work continues to be tantalising perhaps due to the extraordinary quality of her work being at once both highly personal and universal.

Exhibition view, Jenny Watson, Six new works and the Patricia paintings, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (14 April – 13 May 2023)

Exhibition view, Jenny Watson, Peripheral Vision, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (10 May – 2 June 2018)

Jenny Watson First Beer, 2018; synthetic polymer paint, Japanese pi