An exhibition which focuses on the work of Jane Zusters opens at the Fisher Gallery, Pakuranga from Saturday 10 June 1989. This exhibition brings together paintings and works on paper evolved over the period 1983 until 1988.
Zusters attended the University of Canterbury and continued on to the School of Fine Arts in the mid seventies. Since 1983 she has lived in Auckland and is currently based on Waiheke Island. She first became recognized as a photographer and has began taking photographs while attending art school in Christchurch. She says ‘The price one pays as a photographer is incredible involvement with ones subject matter. Sometimes I don’t have enough energy for this intense involvement.’
Finding she did not want to specialize within one media and with media and with the prohibitive costs involved in photography, she expanded into other media. Drawing followed, then ceramics, etching, paintings and sculpture. The ability to be able to work from diverse sources creates a unique versatility within her work.
This exhibition centers around the work that was produced in the years 1983-1988 when Zusters was living in central Auckland. Her studio was a large disused factory and all the works were made here.
Her paintings are topical yet evolve from her personal experience. Her assured expressionistic brush and detail relate to collaging techniques using juxtaposed images. Her work is self-referential but the metaphors and elements used within the work are universal and open to the individual viewers own interpretation.
On the explanation of her work she says ‘Let the image work on your psyche and you can come up with whatever you like about it. I do not provide specific interpretations for my work even though its full of things like boats, bones, life-savers and fragments of reality.’
Press
→ Roses and the black, New Zealand Listener, 06-05-1989
→ Vibrant works of modern life, Sunday Star, 25-06-1989
Ephemera
→ Jane Zusters: The Factory Era - 1983-1988, 1989, exhibition brochure
→ Jane Zusters: The Factory Era - 1983-1988, 1989, exhibition card