Biography: New Zealand artist Anita DeSoto lives in Waitati, Dunedin and has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for the last 20 years. She has a Master of Fine Arts and has been lecturing in Drawing and Painting at the Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic since 2004.
In recognition of her contribution to the New Zealand visual arts she was awarded an arts residency in the prestigious Leipzig International Art Program for three months in Leipzig, Germany (2010). Aratoi Fellow in 2012. Artist in residence at the New Pacific Studios in Vallejo, San Francisco 2014. Recipient of the William Hodges fellowship in Southland for 2018.
In my new works my brush marks are freeing from describing flesh and become increasingly looser, lighter, delicate flourishes and dramatic gestural brushstrokes, pushing and pulling between image and application. Functioning more as directional clues for the viewer.
Like Déjà vu, I like transforming historic compositions into contemporary images as if viewed from afar and I like to relate that to our separation now at the bottom of the world from many of these dynamic historical art works. We now only have access to them via a screen or book.
I see them as universally relatable as about being in a body.
I want to create a dialogue between past and present and capture the sensation and feeling of the painting rather than the details and what was meant by them. I’m thinking more in planes of colour. Just exploring the materiality of paint and asking, how do we read a painting?
Painting in its very nature references the past, so it feels right to explicitly borrow from art history.
I have always liked copying, appropriation feels natural. I am reimagining art history particularly the Baroque.
This era is known for its misogyny but what do we do now with these great works of art? So we can still appreciate them.
My works obscure male characters, drawing attention and focus on female figures and changing the narrative so that the female figures look more empowered.
Represented by Gallery De Novo. Stuart St, Dunedin https://www.gallerydenovo.co.nz
Image: Detail from Flora the Explorer, after Tiepolo. oil on sign board 2022 1200x1080mm
In recognition of her contribution to the New Zealand visual arts she was awarded an arts residency in the prestigious Leipzig International Art Program for three months in Leipzig, Germany (2010). Aratoi Fellow in 2012. Artist in residence at the New Pacific Studios in Vallejo, San Francisco 2014. Recipient of the William Hodges fellowship in Southland for 2018.
In my new works my brush marks are freeing from describing flesh and become increasingly looser, lighter, delicate flourishes and dramatic gestural brushstrokes, pushing and pulling between image and application. Functioning more as directional clues for the viewer.
Like Déjà vu, I like transforming historic compositions into contemporary images as if viewed from afar and I like to relate that to our separation now at the bottom of the world from many of these dynamic historical art works. We now only have access to them via a screen or book.
I see them as universally relatable as about being in a body.
I want to create a dialogue between past and present and capture the sensation and feeling of the painting rather than the details and what was meant by them. I’m thinking more in planes of colour. Just exploring the materiality of paint and asking, how do we read a painting?
Painting in its very nature references the past, so it feels right to explicitly borrow from art history.
I have always liked copying, appropriation feels natural. I am reimagining art history particularly the Baroque.
This era is known for its misogyny but what do we do now with these great works of art? So we can still appreciate them.
My works obscure male characters, drawing attention and focus on female figures and changing the narrative so that the female figures look more empowered.
Represented by Gallery De Novo. Stuart St, Dunedin https://www.gallerydenovo.co.nz
Image: Detail from Flora the Explorer, after Tiepolo. oil on sign board 2022 1200x1080mm
