Jen­ny Watson

Born in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia 1951

Lives and works in Brisbane

Jen­ny Wat­son is known for can­did works that doc­u­ment her life and dreams. Her paint­ings reflect a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on women’s expe­ri­ence by depict­ing female fig­ures on fab­rics select­ed for their cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance, geo­graph­ic ori­gins and indi­vid­ual histories.

Over the past thir­ty years Wat­son has explored the inte­ri­or life with a per­son­al iconog­ra­phy. Through her paint­ings we are offered a lex­i­con of hors­es, pets, friends, found phras­es and every­day ephemera, togeth­er build­ing sub­jec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the artist. Each work can be read as a con­junc­tion of its tex­tu­al and visu­al motifs, togeth­er with its title, but also in ref­er­ence to her pre­ced­ing body of work. The inter­re­la­tion of these dif­fer­ent ele­ments in Watson’s work is not arbi­trary. Rather, they are con­nect­ed, as dif­fer­ent ele­ments in our lives are, at times strong­ly inter-relat­ed yet at oth­er times fleet­ing or fragmentary.

Exhi­bi­tions include: Jen­ny Wat­son: The Fab­ric of Fan­ta­sy, Hei­de Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, Mel­bourne; Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art Aus­tralia, Syd­ney (2017); ​‘Paint­ing, More Paint­ing – Chap­ter 2’, Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Mel­bourne (2016); ​‘Shut Up and Paint’, Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria, Mel­bourne (2016); ​‘Chron­i­cles’, Queens­land Col­lege of Art, Bris­bane (2016); ​‘Beyond the Tow­er: UQ Art Muse­um – 40 Years and Count­ing’, Uni­ver­si­ty of Queens­land Art Muse­um, Bris­bane (2016); ​‘Rad­i­cal Roman­ti­cism’, Crane Arts, Philadel­phia (2015); ​‘Pop to Pop­ism’, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2014); ​‘Gar­den of Eden & Child’s Play’, Galerie Tran­sit, Bel­gium (2014); ​‘Soli­taire’, Tar­rawar­ra Muse­um of Art, Healesville, Vic­to­ria (2014); ​‘Basil Sell­ers Art Prize 4’, Ian Pot­ter Muse­um of Art, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne (2014); ​‘Mix Tape 1980s: Appro­pri­a­tion, Sub­cul­ture, Crit­i­cal Style’, Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria, Mel­bourne (2013); ​‘Con­tem­po­rary Aus­tralia: Women’, Queens­land Art Gallery | Gallery of Mod­ern Art, Bris­bane (2012); ​‘Jen­ny Wat­son: here, there and every­where’, Ian Pot­ter Muse­um of Art, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne (2012); ​‘Tomio Koya­ma Gallery’, Shibuya, Japan (2012); ​‘Mate­r­i­al Evi­dence’, Kun­stvere­in Rosen­heim, Ger­many (2009); and ​‘Paint­ings with Veils and False Tails’, Aus­tralian Pavil­lion, Venice Bien­nale (1993).

Pub­lic col­lec­tions include the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Syd­ney; Art Gallery of West­ern Aus­tralia, Perth; Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art, Syd­ney; Ghent Muse­um, Bel­gium; and Monash Uni­ver­si­ty, Melbourne.

CV

Bib­li­og­ra­phy