JENNIE DE GROOT
Waikato artist, Jennie De Groot was born in the UK and educated in South Africa before emigrating to New Zealand. Her paintings occupy a space where reality, imagination and memory all hold equal tenancy. The tension between realism and abstraction, place and non-place, coupled with her interest in introducing memory and imagination into the paintings, manifests in the disrupted quality that is emphasised with either the paint or the format of the painting. The viewer experiences the seeing and dissolution of a place in almost an instant.
Her painting process is fresh and interesting; she builds up layers of media, scrapes it back and moves it around, creating distinctive mark making that defines the De Groot style.
De Groot exhibits extensively throughout New Zealand and has been a finalist in many national awards, including the Molly Morpeth, New Zealand Painting and Printmaking, and winner of the Landscape category of the Aspiring Art Prize.