TOP LEFT: Kirsten squeezes thick acrylic paint onto her brush, showing off a dazzling collection of rings.
TOP RIGHT: At the front of her studio, the shelves burst with bottles and tubes of bright paint, in every
conceivable colour. BELOW LEFT: “I smile when I come into my studio; I talk to my paintings and tell
them I love them,” says Kirsten. “Anyone would think I was a crazy lady!”A
s a teenager, abstract artist Kirsten
Jackson found her creative outlet in
painting, relishing the healing power
inherent in splashing joyous colours across
a canvas. “When I was three my dad passed
away and, when I was 14, my mum died of
leukaemia. I started painting because it was
the only thing that made me happy,” shares
the Melbourne-based painter. “I couldn’t do
a dark piece; it wouldn’t be possible.”
Her bright artworks are as contagiously
bubbly as Kirsten herself, who still equates
painting with peace. She likens walking into
her studio to breezing through a yoga class.
“I love my studio,” she says of the fresh white
space, which provides a tranquil backdrop forher vibrant pieces. “My breathing changes and
I get that ‘ahhh’ feeling. It’s like my meditation.”
Despite painting for leisure throughout her
life, Kirsten didn’t produce her first series, Happy
Faces – figurative portraits of her smiling mother- until she was in her early 30s. Before then she
was immersed in a corporate sales career. But,
with the arrival of children Taylor, now 22, and
Alexander, now 19, she says: “I didn’t want to go
back to work! Friends wanted to buy my paintings,
so I thought I should just start selling them.”
Kirsten embarked on a Visual Arts degree at
Melbourne’s prestigious RMIT and converted
her garage into a studio, where she developed
her now-signature impasto style of layering and
mixing acrylics, oil crayons, inks and watercolours
to create textural blocks in coastal hues. As clients
became collectors, Art2Muse gallery in Sydney
offered representation and she expanded into
her own showroom and studio in Melbourne’s
south-east. “I never finished my course because
I got so busy with galleries and commissions,”
she admits. While her work is in high demand- she has 38 commissioned pieces on her wait
list and eight international trade shows to prepare
for every year – Kirsten’s success wasn’t as swift as
it seems. “I submitted work to the Canterbury Art
Show and, for the first two years, I was really sad
because nobody bought anything. My husband,
Ian, said ‘I think you should do something else,’”
she laughs, as though giving up was ever an
option. Her grit comes from another passion that
she picked up after losing her mother: running.
“Running and art helped me heal,” explains the
artist, who is training for the 2020 Boston
Marathon. “In elite running you can’t give up after
the first couple of races. We all have failures, but
you keep going until the universe rewards you.”
On the surface, her rewards may be the chance
to swap art with creatives such as Byron Bay artist
Jai Vasicek, or having work exhibited alongside
her childhood idol, iconic Australian painter Ken
Done. But perhaps the greatest gift is channelling
her mother’s spirit in every ebullient piece and
‘Happy Face’ painting. Kirsten says, “I feel like she
is here in the studio with me every day.”“I THINK PEOPLE CONNECT TO MY WORK BY PICKING UP ON MY
ENERGY - IT’S DEEPER THAN WHAT YOU SEE ON THE CANVAS” ~ KirstenTHE EDIT