"I'm fascinated by those inbetween, grey areas
intangibles and ambiguities and then fusing these into the physicality and language of paint "
Jennifer Allnutt is an artist based in Brisbane, Australia.
She graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours) in 2011 and a Masters of Teaching in 2016.
She has been a finalist in the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize (2024) and was the winner of the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award in 2024. Her work has been exhibited around Australia, the US and New Zealand.
"I felt like art was pure magic as a child and I still feel that way
Plucking something intangible from your mind and making it real "
Jennifer Allnutt’s artistic practice is best epitomised as dark romanticism, traditional oil painting and figurative surrealism.
Using the inherent luminous qualities of oil paints, Allnutt applies glazing techniques to build paintings which are high in chroma, jewel-like and play with illusionism and depth. Allnutt is interested in mimicking the delicate qualities of skin and petals in oil paint and these two subjects often feature. As well as this she has a fascination with the natural world and memento mori art.
Allnutts, works oscillate on the line between realism and illusionism. Finding inspiration in poetry, Jungian psychology, mythology, literature, philosophy and personal experiences, Jennifer constructs compositions that act as carriers for her internal musings.
"...working in the studio;
there are phases of hard work and reflection and in between you lose yourself"
They say ‘the devil is in the detail’ and this is true of Allnutt’s work which is meticulously made as well as hinting at times to the occult, superstition and theology.
Characterised by darkly, picturesque florals and alabaster skin, she blends a northern renaissance sensibility with an idiosyncratic use of surrealism and symbolism. Pursuing sensuality, decadence and voracious luminosity in her paintings, Allnutt pairs this with the uncanny, fear and death.
Through the process of juxtaposing death with romance, wonder with fear and the awe inherent in the sublime, Allnutt links these polarities into a dark divergence and these strange pairings fuel the deep sense of the uncanny found within the work. Her use of juxtaposition is deliberate to examine the divisions and fluidity between mind/body, man/nature, reality/representation and good versus evil.
