A Master of Arts (Distinction) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, provides the theoretical architecture for Jacqueline Aust’s art practice. Jacqueline’s practice is to respond to places in time through printmaking, sculpture, and installation. Her subject is often the effect that physical and ideological structures have on our relationship with the natural environment.
Jacqueline tends to print in series, rather than editions, reflecting her interest in the authenticity of multiples. For several years now Jacqueline has been developing a series of works on paper that chart her navigation of environments that are new to her. Each journey begins with marks inscribed in a matrix, a map. Accumulated layers refer to previous experience or notions of home, obscuring and revealing, tracing a path from past to future, with history as a residue to build on.
Artist Statement
Isolation has become a portmanteau word for the period of time, beginning with the covid epidemic. ‘Isolation’ encapsulates an intimacy promoted by unexpected enclosure, and an expanded sense of space developed out of sharing this experience globally. Using materials I had on hand, scraps of paper and discarded prints, I began a series of works during lockdown that marked the character of the days. These small works provided the basis for a series of larger works that map a sense of dislocation and distance, and refer to the impact this has had on my sense of self in the world and of the physical environment I move through.