ARTIST BIO

BIO
STATEMENT
CURRICULUM VITAE

Contemporary Australian artist Jacqui Armstrong has experienced a keen interest in the visual arts since she was young, and spent much of her youth consuming art books, visiting galleries and admiring the works of Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh and Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. Originally from the United Kingdom, Jacqui grew up on the north west coast of Tasmania and moved to Sydney in 1982. She now resides in Perth, since moving there in 2010.

For several decades, Jacqui's time was heavily consumed with the demands of child raising, relocations and running a successful small business. In 2020, when the global COVID-19 pandemic began, she discovered that the hours in her once previously busy schedule were suddenly empty and unhindered. Consequentially, she started to paint again for the first time in many years, and her practice quickly began to flourish. Unfiltered by any degree of formal education, her creative process derives from her instinctual responses and perceptions and, over time, her works have evolved from experimentation and engaging in workshops with Australian and international artists.

Drawn to the liberal and free-forming expression of abstract, Jacqui utilises it to convey uniquely personal and resonating narratives. Through exploring the style's limitless parameters, she's been inspired by the works of US artist Jodie King, German abstract artist Petra Schott and Mexican artist Beatriz Simón.

Since 2020, her works have appeared in numerous exhibitions and art awards in Perth and regional WA, and have been featured in Havenist, Artistcloseup and Art Edit magazines.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

BIO
STATEMENT
CURRICULUM VITAE

Jacqui Armstrong's dynamic abstracts convey distinct and deeply personal stories, derived from her everyday encounters and experiences. Beginning with a narrative that initially forms and relentlessly remains in her mind's eye, she becomes compelled to portray it on the canvas in a bold and evoking manner. Her stories cover diverse and far-reaching facets of her life by exploring personal family connections, emotional tribulations and the ingenuity of her organic environment.

Encompassing an amplitude of colours, textures and layers, Jacqui's works are created through the application of mixed media on stretched canvas. Much of the colour work is deposited with sizeable brushes on large-scale canvases, and added texturisations are achieved with a variety of tools that produce unique interest and scope. When viewed concurrently, these well-balanced components reveal contrasting colour relationships, compelling shapes and atmospheric undercurrents.

With the desire to instigate stirring connections between her art and her viewers, Jacqui produces emotionally charged and considered compositions. With an attraction to the aspects and tenets of her stories that are universal and unify us, she creates with a focused interest in the themes of love and empathy, wonder and grief, beauty and passion.

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