PAINTING CONTENT
I paint birds in the landscape as opposed to with a landscape. I like to give both the bird, landscape, foliage and message equal importance as I see them as interconnected and needing one another.
This complicates my painting process which means a painting can take a long time to resolve because of the complexity of elements and their relationship with one another. Especially when it is transferred to the flat surface of the canvas.
SUBJECTS & RELATIONSHIPS
I believe that nothing stands on its own physically or spiritually and this is what I try to convey in my paintings.
I believe all things are interconnected and have an effect on one another. Especially how we think.
The environment, the entity, colour, spacial platform, rhythm and most important the Light (spiritual and seen), are all important relational considerations in my work.
As are the birds and distinctive landscape of New Zealand where I live.
ARTISTS PROCESS
My intention isn’t to produce a botanic illustration, design or graphic representation but to portray sensation, emotion and spiritual presence.
Although my oil painting process has a traditional quality about it I am trying to convey concepts in an untraditional manner without well-used visual icons.
I have also learned from the process of painting that there is no simplicity without the detail and my paintings reflect that intricate quality.
In my Abstract works I paint from my subconscious carefully scumbling the paint over the dots of the canvas to build layers.
There is more thought than action as I reinforce and subdue areas allowing everything to remain. A meditative response to shapes and colour.
My light source is internal creating a prismatic effect.
The result is a personal visual diary of my life encounters both emotive and situational.
I have intruded into this space with text, in some works, to create conflict or subject.
My painting makes a connection with a universality we have with something greater than ourselves.
ARTIST STATEMENT -2022
Inspiration for my latest art works now comes from my memory and the first paintings I referenced from photographic information. I now have the freedom of not needing visual reference as a starting point.
I see my recent art similar to a mathematical equation as they are painted and can be viewed many ways and still work. They can be viewed reflected in a mirror, upside down, right way up and have a 3D component also. I sometimes replace light with dark or vice versa and include symbols of flight, landscape,trees, dancing, reaching out and celebration.
The subject in my recent paintings remains a bird or flight in an environment/landscape and I am combining abstract, figurative and symbolic elements together. The environment has become dominant or the subject in some cases and dictates how other elements are represented.
My art is my personal journey in life revealing challenges, celebrations and continues to push towards a destination. Painting is how I communicate with the world and myself, helping me discover personal idiosyncrasies, future possibilities and connecting me with the beauty of life and my spiritual world.
ARTISTS PROFILE
New Zealand Bird and Landscape Artist Miranda Woollett graduated from the Wellington Polytechnic Visual Communications Design course with a Diploma in 1980. She has been employed in many different areas of the visual arts including Graphic design, book illustration, set design and worked as a freelance advertising illustrator in Wellington. She has illustrated books for renowned children's authors Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley.
”I paint oil paintings of birds in the New Zealand landscape. The idea behind these oil paintings is to
try and represent how I feel emotionally as an artist and to communicate on an environmental level. Rather
than using people as my subject I choose the bird. It is vulnerable yet gets on with life regardless of
circumstances.
Its environment is affected by the choices we make. My art is sourced exclusively from
where I live in New Zealand As an artist I hope to connect with others who have a love of beauty and the
environment we live in. Each persons reaction to their environment is a unique experience. Everything that
we are (our deepest inner self) is transferred from that experience, out into the world for others to see,
through the process of creating art.”
ANALYSIS OF PROCESS - 28 Aug 2022
Over the years I have analysed the data provided to me by photographs.
My subject being 'Birds in the Landscape'.
Out of this I have created myself a process to paint that replicates the character of nature and the effect of light, using tangents, intersecting lines and significant points associated with Geometry.
This has enabled me to paint anything without reference which frees me to create what I want knowing it could actually exist in reality.
A form of technical drawing or drafting geometry in paint.
I try to include in my abstract landscape paintings many of the formalities of Art and the fundamental principles of Design.
4 April 2026.
In The Beginning…Past Stories are our future.
My Paintings have a strong connection to my Danish Family who arrived by clipper to NZ in the late 1890’s from Denmark and settled in Kaikoura. Here they established farmland, built homes were sawmillers and lived in hard, physical, pioneering times, including going to war. My family left much documentation of these days with diaries, photos and paintings as a legacy to the future generations, ‘big picture’ thinkers.
Having lived most of my life in Upper Hutt, in particular the Akatarawa valley, I felt my life here in a way was a ‘parallel’ to life in the Puhi Puhi Valley in Kaikoura, because of its isolation, logging history and the challenges of the land and cold.
This sense of connection created a spiritual bond for me to the land. This is reflected in my paintings and has created a visual time line of my life and emotions.
My sister, a curator of a gallery in Scotland, sees my painting from this perspective….
These works strongly reference a point outside of time where the forms of the natural world come into being from un-manifest pure light.
According to creation stories from many wisdom traditions, the forms of the world are deployed with their integral meanings in principial form on the creative breath or spirit or word.
For example in the Maori creation story the unfolding of the forms of nature begins with a separation from the relative darkness of potential, which then allows the light to appear.
In these paintings the artist is exploring her intuitive sense of the mystery of creation.
The crystalline forms are not so much an abstraction from nature, but express the coming into being from potential into the beauty of manifestation.
I am influenced by Colin McCahon who taught his pupils to ‘paint the light” in a spiritual context as well as a practical instruction. I have used this thought process throughout my painting along with my understanding of the landscape, mathematics, biology and geometry.
After many years of painting practice, I now paint in a spontaneous manner starting with “nothing’ or no intention and my paintings are the result.
My strong connection to the landscape and nature are now manifesting in abstracted, deeper reflections of my life journey and those that went before me.
I am a well regarded, elected artist of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts as referred to below.
Miranda Woollett is an artist I have had the pleasure of exhibiting with and whose work I have curated over a number of years at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts where she is a highly regarded Elected Artist Member.
I am particularly impressed and excited by her recent directions that are assured with a cohesion and a clear vision. She is a competent and consistent practitioner who inhabits a particularly creative poetic dimension with mastery of paint and palette.
Her works offer multi-visionary experiences. Monochromatic and intricate with intriguing subtexts beyond the canvas face, woven complexities entice the viewer to look closely and deeply to appreciate subtle nuances and significance, or conversely, the distant view seeing the larger design impact.
Paintings reflect a well-considered poetry of composition, juxtaposing light and dark to achieve a meditative, mesmerizing effect demanding the viewer’s time and contemplation. Images may move, dance, challenge, yet are imbued with a peace and harmony. They may pay homage to nature, foliage, bird but are much more . . . a prayer, an intercession for conservation, for our care of the environment.
They are an individual interpretation of our native wildlife and flora as Miranda answers to her heart and creative compulsion with a singular brush, profound thought and integrity at each step, often constructing her own canvases through to concept and design, colour and application.
Miranda’s is a worthy body of work, strong and captivating, comprising beautifully executed pieces redolent with message, sanctuary and sanctity, sometimes reminiscent of stain glass windows.
An exaltation celebrating our country’s majestic wilderness, her paintings represent facets of NZ distinct from other artists’ representations, ideally drawn to ignite the curiosity of a northern European eye. Yet she is stepping incrementally through this contemporary prismatic vision to embrace themes beyond the natural environment, specific concerns and expressions important to her and I watch with curiosity and expectation for future revelations.
Suzanne Herschell
EXHIBITIONS:
2002 Archibalds Artplace.Finding my way. Upper Hutt.
2002 Taylor Jensen Fine Arts.
Relationships. Palmerston North.
2002 Expressions. Upper Hutt Artists. Upper Hutt.
2004 Taylor
Jensen Fine Arts. A Family Affair. Palmeston North.
2004 Affordable Arts.Wellington.
2005 Academy
Galleries. NZAFA Heritage Award (FInalist).Wellington.
2006 Academy Galleries. Solo 23.
Wellington.
2008 Academy Galleries. Mental States. Wellington.
2008 Academy Galleries. Solo 27.
Wellington.
2009 Expressions. Vector Gallery. Upper Hutt.
2009 Expressions. Upper Hutt Salon. Upper
Hutt.
2009 Exhibitions Gallery. Lost in Paradise. Wellington.
2010 Little River Gallery. Banks
Peninsula.
2010 Taylor Jensen Fine Arts. Palmerston North.
2011 Efil Doog Gallery of Fine Art. Solo
Time Markers. Akatarawa.
2011 Staglands Wildlife reserve. Akatarawa
2011 NZ Academy of Fine Arts.
Occassion. Wellington.
2012 Kiwi Art House. NZ Art partnership. Wellington
2013 Exhibitor at NZ
Academy of Fine Arts.Matariki
2014 Exhibitor at NZ Academy of Fine Arts.Matariki
2015 Expressions Regional Art Award.
2016 Percy Thompsen Gallery, Stratford.
2022 Solo 50 Academy of Fine Arts
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