Jennifer oishi
Byron Bay based emerging contemporary artist
Exhibition - In plain sight
ARTIST STATEMENT
Blur, haze, mist and imperfect reflections, those partially obscured images are what holds my attention. Did my childhood shyness, wanting to be present but not in the spotlight, ignite my interest in this realm? Possibly. Was I searching for a sense of self? Probably. Bypassing the focal point and finding pleasure in those parts of an image that were unnoticed or purposely out-of-focus; what's hiding in plain sight, is what I'm featuring in this body of work – the beauty in the blur.
In my work, photography informs my oil painting. I enjoy the immediacy of a photograph, capturing a moment in time, but I balance this with the slower, gradual buildup of an image on a canvas with oil paints. The wonder of releasing an image from the colours, textures and brushstrokes of the paint, never turning out exactly as expected, is seductive.
