About
Welcome to Outlook8studio
Outlook8studio is the online art website and gallery of Australian artist, Jenny Davis.
Jenny works from her multi- purpose studio she built from recycled materials, based in the beautiful Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia.
Jenny Davis is a professional artist and has intermittently, lived in Paris, London and Spain, where she was awarded an arts residency in Barcelona. Jenny has worked on several, creative collaborations and research projects throughout Europe and US, over the past 30 years. Her practice encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, mixed media, photography, book arts, textiles, installation & video.
Jenny’s artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Berlin, Paris, Spain, New York, UK & USA. and is represented in numerous private and public collections. She has received awards and residencies both nationally and internationally, and her digital artworks have been projected onto buildings in Times Square, New York and in 2017 at The Venice Biennale 57 in Italy.
Art Statement – Jenny Davis
“In researching and documenting under-structure, abandoned buildings and marks left behind in the built environment, I find ‘beauty in decay, random marks, aerial perspectives, graffiti and weathered surfaces’. My artworks link to the contrasts of imperfections, found in the urban environment, highlighting, insignificant marks, weathered surfaces and cast-offs. I am influenced by, abandoned, underground and derelict spaces, vacant industrial sites, structures, old walls & graffiti.”
Interview with Jenny Davis
What was your first experience with/discovery of art? What made you want to become an artist?
As a child growing up in Melbourne Australia, my family were poor, so for fun, I would collect things from the street to play with. Very often I would take the bits and pieces, pull them apart and re-make them into small gifts for my mum.
At age 12, on my first trip to the National Gallery of Victoria, I saw a black painting with a little white dot in the middle. I knew I loved it but didn’t know why. As it turns out my first exhibition in 1996, was at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Are there any key themes, messages or theories behind your work?
My abstractions are investigations into marks and traces left behind in the environment. I explore neglected corners, crevices and abandoned spaces and objects and see beauty in decay, rust, random marks, aerial perspectives, graffiti and weathered surfaces.
I explore the layers of lifetimes, revealing the unspoken, unheard and the unseen. History, religion, politics, disruption, conflict, world &human condition, nature, decay, loss & renewal, are just some of the themes, I explore.
Its all an emotional release for me.
Could you tell us a bit about your artistic approach? (Style, medium and specific techniques.)
I am an abstract painter and texture features strongly in my paintings. Space is important in my work as it allows for marks and images to be more relevant and upfront.
I also like to work with old and new surfaces to reveal subtle and obvious areas.
I’m interested in non objective images, marks that fight each other and opposites
Sometimes, layers dissolve to allow underwork to emerge.
Recycling materials is also very important in my work too. Found objects become sculptural elements, antique book pages are embedded in layers of paint, while concrete and laces co-exist. I create sculpture, collage, artists books and textile pieces, from vintage paper and antique textiles.