Artist | Jacqueline Butterworth | Resides | United Kingdom |
Website | jacquibutterworth.com | Medium | Oil |
Print Shop | jacquibutterworth.com/shop | jacqartist@gmail.com | |
Representing Gallery | Watershed Gallery Pokolbin, NSW, Australia | Themes | Mythology Nature Ecological Revolution Narrative surrealism Baroque Romantic Symbolism Vanitas Allegory Figurative realism Transformation Duality Power imbalance |
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About the artist
Born in 1987 at precisely 6:10 am on a sunny Saturday in Sydney, Australian artist Jacqueline Michell Butterworth has been painting as long as she can remember. These days a full-time visual artist based between Sydney and London, she specialises in hyper realistic oil paintings and murals.
One moment sacred, the next irreverent, Jacqueline creates vibrant, imaginative paintings that will either sweep you up or draw you in – often oscillating between grand, complex compositions and quieter, more intimate pieces.
Her sophisticated and beautiful technique is informed by a veritable melting pot of historic painting traditions. From Mannerism and the Baroque to the Romantic and Symbolist movements of the late 19th Century. In fact, one of Jacqueline’s earliest pieces, Lion with Six Legs (circa 1990) also denoted an interest in Surrealism that carries through to her practice today.
Artwork Themes & Subject Matter
Drawing from a well of personal experience and inspired by all those things that connect us as living matter, Jacqueline Butterworth’s ‘no longer still’ still life paintings are cheeky, self-deprecating, cathartic, hopeful, and yet altogether deeply moving.
There are descending ladders of meaning in her work, indicative perhaps of Jacqueline’s long-standing love of symbolism as a means of storytelling; conjuring narratives that explore themes of love, grief, power, change, and resilience.
All the while, they playfully subvert our urban encroachment on natural habitats, depicting opulent scenes that are overrun by wildlife. Here peacocks, pelicans and peachy-faced corellas might take center stage, cavorting like courtesans from Old Master paintings, becoming not so much gatecrashers as the life of the party.
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Education
2011, Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022
The Gatecrashers, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2016
The Old Bear And The Sea, Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
Small Works, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, Raymar Traditional Art Award Finalist
Antipodes, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2022
Lethbridge 20000, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
Electric Dreams, Saint Cloche Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Antipodes, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2021
Antipodes, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2020
Cultivate, Lion Gate Lodge, Sydney Royal Botanic Garden, NSW
Lethbridge Group Exhibition, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
2019
Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong, Australia
Replay, The Creative Space, Sydney, Australia
Wild Thing, Lion Gate Lodge, Sydney, Australia
Liquorice All-sorts, Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Lethbridge 20000, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
2018
Lifeblood, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Sgraffito, Saint Cloche Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2017
Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong, Australia
SQ1 New Work, Former Mansfield Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award, Gallery Lane Cove, Sydney, Australia
Other Worlds, The Creative Space, Sydney, Australia
2016
Warringah Art Prize, Warringah Creative Space, Sydney, Australia
2015
New Surrealisms, Brunswick Street Gallery, Sydney, Australia