Coastal Scrub Dance – Huge 183cm x 122cm Original Painting

This is a large original abstract painting on canvas ready to hang on your beautiful wall.

This painting belongs to my more abstract-expressionist body of work, which is inspired by my microscopic ‘Life Enlarged’ series as well as my muse, the Australian Coastline.

On the one hand the repeatative expressionistic brush marks in this painting are reminiscent of my microscopic fabric paintings of the past.

On the other hand these rhythmic gestural brush marks hark back to the seascapes and coastal regions of Australia and my passionate love of these places.

This one takes the viewer on a walk through the Aussie coastal scrub via tea tree, banksia, pandanus, spinifex and she-oaks down to the beach. All those gnarly forms and tree shapes along the way. The beautifully formed knotted rhythmic lines of branches, vines and leaves with little snippets of sea, sky, cliff and sand glimpsed through little windows in the foliage. I have placed these fibrous forms in infinite spaces also reminiscent of coastal scrub forests, deep water kelp forests or matted dry seaweed on the shore. The mark making, movement and colours are all inspired by these things.

There are also beautiful textures in the surface; from mark making and dripping paint that gives a fluid, open kind of feel to the artwork.

I wanted the painting to have a kind of uplifting energy, beautiful and vibrant. So I hope that has come to be.

What I enjoy most about my paintings is they make people smile with a sense of wonderment and feelings of happiness as well as giving their walls some interest and a splash of colour for years to come.

ALL PAINTINGS ARE VARNISHED with Professional Quality Artists Varnish, once they have been photographed. This gives a protective surface and an exquisite sheen that really makes the colours powerful & eye-catching.
The painting is on canvas wrapped around traditional wooden stretcher bars with edges that are a smart 3.5cm deep out from your wall.
The edges are cleaned, staple free and painted a rich black to compliment this artwork.
Ready to put on your wall with hanging wire on back.
Painting is signed and titled verso.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jacquelyn Stephens is a Melbourne based artist who has been successfully exhibiting her paintings for over 20 years since completing a BFA in Painting at the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts. She has gained an extensive knowledge of Art, quality art materials, techniques and theory from working closely in the arts industries and in her own art practice. Jacquelyn works full time from her studio on the Melbourne fringe. She has had several successful solo and group exhibitions in commercial galleries and artists run spaces. Her paintings can be seen in many media publications and are held in private collections worldwide. Many of the key themes in her work have been informed by her interest in water, nature, science, the environment and the domain of medicine.

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was $4500
I have reduced the price of this painting due to the effect of Corona Virus on the world economy and my income. I am hoping it helps some buyers to beautify their homes in this current situation and be able to support a sole trader - artist (that's me), at the same time.
Prices will return to normal when the world does.
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NOTE: as this is an extra large size artwork it will be delivered to you safely via a specialist Art Courier please contact me via Bluethumb messages for more details.
Read more about this artwork below.

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COMMISSIONS: Jacquelyn is more than happy to create a unique painting for your wall, just ask Bluethumb.

ADMIN BITS
All images remain the copyright property of the artist, Jacquelyn Stephens.
Some interior images created by and courtesy of iartview app.
Please note that Artworks displayed in rooms are for the purpose of illustration only and are not always to exact scale. They are pretty close but be sure to check the dimensions for paintings actual size.
Sold with a 'Certificate of Authenticity' on request.

Some FEEDBACK from my artwork sold online:
'Beautiful piece! Prompt delivery and well packaged! Looks great on the wall for us to enjoy!'
'Fantastic! Thanks for such an easy transaction 5Star'
'Beautiful! A+++'
'Absolutely fantastic! Beautiful painting. Great communication and packaging A+++'
'Thanks Jacquelyn. Great little painting with a neat story.'
'What a beautiful print thanks for the communication as well'
'Very pleased with the quality of this print, great service too, thankyou.'

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Jacquelyn Stephens is an abstract artist who creates large uplifting paintings that explore microscopic sea-life and coastal topography.
She over-enlarges and abstracts miniscule life forms and patterns onto the canvas and paints in many layers using glazing techniques to heighten the luminosity and ephemeral beauty of these otherworldly scenes.
The finished paintings have a unique nuance and glow that is at once captivating, ethereal, mysterious and meditative.
Ultimately Jacquelyn's paintings are about connecting to our sense of awe and wonder at nature and the miraculous building blocks of life. The hope is that the paintings trigger a beautiful uplifting and contemplative experience for the viewer. An experience that also reminds us of the beauty in, and of our important relationship to, the fragile natural world.

Jacquelyn is based in Melbourne and has been painting for over 25 years since being awarded a Bachelor of Fine Art Majoring in Painting from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Over the years she has had several successful solo and group exhibitions in commercial galleries and artists run spaces. Her paintings can be seen in many media publications and are held in private collections worldwide and recently appeared on the popular TV renovation shows 'The Block', ‘Healthy Homes Australia’ and ‘Love it Or List It’. Many of the key themes in her work have been informed by her interest in water, science, nature, the environment and the world of medicine (especially following a brush with death from a mysterious brain tumour in 1997, the cellular origin of which was never discovered).

More recently it has become important for Jacquelyn to make paintings that talk about the current wellness of our oceans and waterways. She glues on fragments of tiny plastic, sourced from years of beach combing, onto her paintings. Sometimes, she uses the plastic, moulded and faded by the sea, as a formal colour device and sometimes as an invisible trace, embedded into the surface. It’s a win, win for the environment. She collects this horrible stuff so it does less harm and it is safely encased in a painting where it stays forever. Either way it is the notion of the plastic being there (visible or not) that is important to her and those that care.

MORE IF YOU WANT!
‘I am interested in making paintings with verve that breathe with an uplifting energy for those viewing them. I am totally inspired and fascinated by natures life forces with its contrasts of order and chaos, but especially in the patterns created by nature, particularly microscopic worlds, aquatic life and the infinite beauty and wonder within the natural world. Having grown up on the cliffs of Bass Strait I am also deeply inspired by the life giving waters of the sea. The power of a crashing wave, vast horizon lines, submerged views of light or miniscule single cell algae, these universes are forever influencing the pictorial spaces in what I do’.
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The subject of Jacquelyn Stephens’s paintings is an exploration into the sublime beauty of the minuscule in nature. She celebrates the life forces, lumiescence and colour energies inherent in all things microscopic, sub-atomic and aquatic. Having grown up on the cliffs of Flinders, staring across the horizon of Bass Strait, she is also deeply inspired by the life giving waters of the sea. The power of a crashing wave, vast horizon lines, bioluminescent organisms or miniscule single cell algae, these universes inspire and influence the pictorial spaces and forms in her paintings.
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Note: You can view Jacquelyn's Bluethumb Art pieces before purchase at her studio via appointment all year round.
Please message Jacquelyn via Bluethumb if you are wanting a studio visit.

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EVEN A BIT MORE FROM THE ARTIST if you would like to read on:
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MY Great TURNING POINT in my Artistic journey and life. As I have always been interested in the human body as a place for contemplation and a space for creation when I ran into some tragedy following completing my BFA, my art took a strange but obvious turn. Well this actually turned out to be my big ‘turning point’ as an artist, but a nasty ailment none-the-less. I was struck down with a life threatening illness that not only put me out of action for a year or so but also affected my eyesight, not great thing for a visual artist. In retrospect, I was really really ill.
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During this time, as happens; I fell into depression. It was at this point that my art really became the only thing that kept me going. It was my only place of joy. The only space I could escape my illness, forget, and be something and somewhere other.
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It was also about now that thoughts about life and death and my own mortality came together to question me and say ‘listen this is it, this is YOUR LIFE…what do you really want to do with it? What is your path?’. My answer was obvious and I have never looked back even through the toughest of times, I am still following my journey…AND... As well as my art being my saviour in my life death situation, the illness became part of my subject, not in a macabre way but kind of mysteriously joyful way. You see the cells of the tumour I had growing in my head could never ever be identified as a common growth formation, it was nothing the professionals had ever seen before. The final diagnosis from my entourage of Specialists was something along the lines of ‘a tumorous mass of unidentifiable origin’! And that my friends is 20th century medical science for you. I continue to be fascinated with the idea of those shadowy tiny cells of ‘unknown origin’ and my following journey into the microscopic and the mysterious building blocks of life. How these cells, atoms, particles beneath the surface of everything we see, are in motion and energized and doing stuff we may never understand, colours we can only imagine, energies that are beyond gravity and mathematics but holding the very fabric of life together. Isn’t that amazing. I find it awe-inspiring. Hence my continued journey into a ‘sublime of the small’ and ‘what lies beneath’.
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