JENNY SUMMERS

From Kyogle on the Far North Coast of NSW, Jennifer Summers work is influenced by the farming community in which she was raised. Living on a grazing property and given her first water colour set as a 4 year old, she was encouraged from this early age to create by the multi-generation of women in the family home who were active in a range of artistic endeavours.

Summers’ landscapes are inspired by the hills and valleys of the MacPherson Ranges, a spur of the Great Dividing Range that heads east to the coast forming part of the Scenic Rim on the border between Queensland and NSW. This area is known as the Border Ranges and as it nears the ocean, tropical rainforest gives way to pasture. The Border Ranges are part of the world heritage Gondwana Rainforests with the Toonumbah, Richmond and Border Ranges National Parks a significant feature of the country around Kyogle. These are subtropical rainforests thriving with plants and wildlife increasingly subject to the effects of a changing climate.

Summers undertook her tertiary studies at the College of Fine Art and short courses at the National Art School, Tom Bass Sculpture Studio in Sydney, and further courses at The Slade School in London. Between 1975-96 she worked as an art teacher and distance education illustrator and audio/video producer for NSW Education.

Her work has been hung in the North Sydney, Mosman and Paddington Art Prizes and has had numerous solo and group exhibitions.