Buffy Jackson is an artist based in Canberra, Australia. She loves line and the range of emotions that can be expressed with its varying strength and the medium used.
She grew up in Tasmania surrounded by 360 degrees of panoramic land and sea scapes. This has left her with a deep sense and awareness of space and daily environmental change. Its impact has travelled with her on many journeys she has undertaken across the Australian continent.
She holds an intense passion for the diversity and rawness of its landscape, its vast distances and the contrasting vistas of deserts, rivers, mountains and surrounding seas.
After completing a BA from the University of Tasmania, Buffy enrolled in the Graphic Investigation Workshop at the Canberra School of Art, graduating in 1984. She believes this is where her real education began! The head of her workshop, Petr Herel, instilled in his students an artistic desire to produce works of sensitivity and challenging technical ability. She explored drawing in many forms and was encouraged to extend her imagination and expression with explorative large and small works. Artist’s books became an integral part of this workshop which formed her love for working on paper and developing series of artworks with over-riding themes. Her artistic process is still deeply imbedded in this creative and sensitive approach.
One trip has left an enduring impression on her psyche. She rode a bicycle from Port Augusta in South Australia through the Flinders Ranges then up the Birdsville Track to Birdsville. From there she rode north to Mount Isa, east to Cloncurry then north again to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. This 2,200 kilometre trip changed her perception of the Australian landscape. It was not the physical effort to complete the ride that stayed with her, but how inconsequential she felt to the land around her. The horizon was uninterrupted and vast, the distance between silent, huge and beautiful. The earth at her feet was raw. She felt embedded in it yet was awed and humbled by its complexity. She wanted the sense of space to be felt through her drawings. It has influenced her drawing in all aspects: the choice of materials, the use of medium, the choice of subject, the intensity of space, every line she draws.
Her drawings reflect the emotional attachment she has to the remoteness and beauty of these land and seascapes plus the varying intensity of vegetation that grows in and around them.
They are intricate and detailed on both large and small scales. Her art is intensely personal in execution as she works closely on stretched paper requiring a delicate and detailed touch. She layers washes and charcoal on the taut surface of the paper then works back into it with small brushes to gradually reveal imagery. It is a process that takes many hours and concentration.
Between her journeys Buffy continues to work from her studio in Canberra. She enjoys interaction and contact with a large group of local artists where ideas, information and experiences are readily shared. It is a vibrant, creative and supportive community of like-minded people.
Daily walks through neighbouring wetlands keep her in touch with the physical environment that has impacted her art over time. At a local level she is able to feel and see the influence that light has on land, vegetation and water through dramatic seasonal changes. It keeps alive for her the beauty and wonder of outback and coastal locations. Her art practice is continually challenged!
Buffy’s artist books have been exhibited in Washington DC, Switzerland and New Zealand. They have also been exhibited Australia-wide with the Print Council of Australia. Her books are held in the National Library of Australia’s Rare Book Collection and the Artists Book Collection at the Menzies Library ANU, Canberra, as well as private collections.
In the years after leaving Art School whilst raising her three children she exhibited annually with a ceramic artist whose children attended the same local primary school as her own. She also took part in and led community art projects. In these Buffy taught students ranging in age from 4 to 80 plus years. She used the education she had received at Art School as the basis for developing her own courses.
Her teaching career was varied and successful. After completing a Graduate Diploma of Education, she taught in high schools developing curricula for gifted and talented classes, for students with physical and mental illnesses in the Canberra Hospital School and portfolio courses for Art School entry.
It was a number of her former students successfully holding their own exhibitions that influenced her to retire and concentrate on her own work.
For nearly two decades she has travelled extensively throughout Australia by foot, bicycle, boat and 4WD. She has camped through seven deserts, Kakadu, the Kimberley plus bushwalked over iconic Tasmanian tracks. She has scuba dived on the Barrier Reef, stood on the tip of Cape York and flown into Port Davey over the Southern Ocean. She has explored the waterways of the Hawkesbury river a number of times.
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Graduate Diploma in Education, University of Canberra (1998)
Diploma in Creative Writing, Canberra TAFE (1987)
Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts, Canberra School of Art (1983)
Bachelor of Arts, University of Tasmania (1977)
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Group Exhibitions:
On Show Canberra Art Workshop, The Link Ginninderry, 2021
On Show Canberra Art Workshop, M16 Artspace 2020
Related Art, Yarralumla Gallery, exhibition with my two sisters, Prue Power and Jennifer Jackson and four of our adult children and dedicated to our mother 2003
Yearly exhibitions with Ceramic Artist Monika Leone at Yarralumla Gallery and at her home gallery 1995 – 2001
Fragile Objects Artists and Books Limited Editions exhibited at:
Australian Embassy, Washington 1994
Musee des Beaux Arts de la Ville du Locle, Switzerland 1995
National Library, Canberra 1996
Backyard Project exhibited at Tilley’s Devine 1990, Gorman House 1991
Print Council of Australia 1986 – 1988 travelling exhibition Australia and New Zealand
Canberra School of Art 1984
Solo Exhibition:
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Print Council of Australia
National Library of Australia Rare Book Collection
Artist’s Book Collection Menzies Library, ANU, Canberra
Canberra School of Art
Private Collections
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1987 – 1997
Freelance art teacher running programs from pre-schoolers to the elderly
Teaching primary school children in creating public art making
Teaching high school students in drawing, book making and life drawing
Organiser of Lyons Community Centre running art groups in drawing, printmaking
Developing and teaching Adult Education art courses
1998 – 2011
Teaching in a number of High Schools and Colleges in the ACT
Developed curricula for gifted and talented students and portfolio courses for art school entry
Developed courses for and taught in the Canberra Hospital School
Conducted many extra curricula art activities
2012 – 2021:
Lived in Brisbane, becoming a fulltime artist and working on a body of works reflecting her travels around Australia. This resulted in her solo exhibition of over 40 works in 2016.
2020 - ongoing
Return to Canberra and setting up a studio.