Exotic Infusions       
Nerida de Jong has spent much of her life traveling some of the most beautiful corners of the globe. Influenced by the diverse places she has called “home” over the years, de Jong’s art reflects that beauty of life’s simple pleasures.

Nerida de Jong is great believer in following ones dreams. Remembering that passion for drawing and painting that she felt from the age of three, de Jong says she never considered any other path but art.

“There was never any question about the career path I would take. Painting and drawing were the only things I ever wanted to do,” she points out.

De Jong’s artistic development had always been closely intertwined with her transient lifestyle and experiences in different cultures. From the exotic Cook Islands and Fiji, to provincial France and the breathtaking Greek Islands, de Jong’s art presents the idiosyncratic beauty of everyday life in these cultures that are often taken for granted.

Now based in France she continues to make regular sojourns to both Australia and the Pacific Islands, fulfilling her passion for both art and travel.

D e Jong works mainly in acrylics but has extended her favorite choice of medium, taking up pen and watercolor with renewed enthusiasm.

“I didn’t paint seriously with watercolor until 1999 as I never really liked or was interested in them,” she says. “Now they are my preferred medium for traveling as they are so easy to carry.”
“I also feel very strongly about drawing. I would be surprised if someone could produce good paintings if they were unable to draw—even if the painting is abstract.”

With an affinity for tropical and rural environment, de Jong’s style is very naturalistic. Her brush strokes flow organically and her colors are rich and vibrant. Whether the subject is a bowl of capsicums or a woman relaxing in her immediately surrounds, de Jong manages to extract the innate romanticism that can be found in life’s most simple pleasures.

“One doesn’t have to say something to the world, my works are just what they are—explanations of what’s happening around me at a particular time,” de Jong explains.

A large part of communicating the true essence of a subject is to only paint what one has experienced. If there is one thing de Jong is adamantly opposed to, it is working from photographs of places she has never seen first hand.

“To me those paintings have no soul,” she states. “The artist could faithfully represent the picture technically, but I would always pass it by without a second glance.”

“IT is often the whole scene, the atmosphere and sometimes the people, which makes us want to paint something, and a photograph captures just a very small part of the whole,” de Jong shares.

Alongside art, it is family and travels that complete de Jong life. While traveling has often been influenced by the project commitments of de Jong and her husband, the importance of family unity has always been a paramount concern.

“I believe in living—not just traveling,” de Jong says. “I’d rather stay in one place and get to k now it for a few weeks at least. We lived in France with the four children in the early 1980s for a few years and that was really the start of a lot of traveling.”

Each time de Jong has embraced a different culture, her artistic expression has grown and developed with the newfound customs, tastes, sights and surrounds she has absorbed.
When based on a remote outer island of Fiji, de JOng focused much of her attention to drawing, as at the time she was also teaching her children through correspondence courses. After moving to France, de Jong spent more time painting and found that her work took on a very different look inspired by the old, traditional lifestyle of rural France.

When she returned to Australia and settled on the north coast, de Jong completed a large series of paintings that represented the river, what was underground and what was underwater. This period culminated in a very large fantasy piece that had many layers of paint and detail. During the 1980s, de Jong broke away from this work and returned to life drawing and painting models in their landscape.

De Jong credits the two years that she spent in the Cook Islands as effecting the most significant change in her work. She maintains this has had a profound influence on her work over the last ten years.

“The time in the Cook Islands was a huge life-changing experience which gave my art a very different perspective. Before this, I was painting much darker works—not in subject, but in style they were not as bright as that are now,” she reflects. “This time was a huge growing and learning curve and the body of work from this period is still very popular today.”

“As my husband is a boat builder, we have also lived on boats for about twelve years. This gives one a very different perspective on life compared to living in a house on land.” De Jong explains.

“I have a tremendous love of France—especially southern rural France. Time seems as though it has stood still for hundreds of years—the way they build their houses, even if it’s a new one it will still look like it has been there forever,” de Jong says.

While de Jong certainly considers herself blessed to have been able to follow and fulfill her dreams so successfully, she firmly believes that each individual should likewise find their true passion and do their best to pursue it.

“I am a firm believer in doing what you want to do and not be a slave to the norm, because anyone can do anything if they put their mind to it,” she says. “Although money is important to be able to travel and live the life we have—we have sacrificed quite a lot of things that others have. You just have to determine what is important to you.”

Nerida de Jong’s work is represented in many private collections throughout the world.

Principal Exhibitions

1976 Little Gallery Devonport Tasmania

1979 Mackay Harrison Gallery East Ballina NSW

1981 Le Serrec Exposition Nantiat France

1985 Mackay Harrison Gallery East Ballina NSW

1986 Kenwall Galleries Cook Islands

1997 Cape Gallery Byron Bay NSW

1999 Sheraton Gallery Nadi Fiji

2000 Michael Commerford Rushcutters Bay NSW

2001 Pollock Gallery formerly Windows on Church Galleries, Melbourne VIC

2002 Pollock Gallery, Melbourne VIC

2003 Pollock Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

2004 To 2006 Permanent Exhibition, St Cirq Lapopie, France

2006 Pollock gallery, Melbourne, VIC

Group Exhibitions

1984 Sydney Morning Herald Art Prize

1984 Southern Cross Arts Festival

1985 Portia Geach Memorial Prize for Women

1986 Southern Cross Arts Festival

Portia Geach Memorial Prize for Women

1987 Southern Cross Arts Festival

Portia Geach Memorial Prize for Women

1988 North Coast Art Awards

Southern Cross Arts Festival

1989 Critics Choice Exhibition

Southern Cross Arts Festival

Jacaranda Arts Festival

1994 Southern Cross Arts Festival

1995 Lismore Regional Gallery

North Coast Art Awards

Southern Cross Arts Festival

1996 - 2000

Lismore Regional Gallery

Southern Cross Arts Festival

North Coast Art Awards

2000 & 2001

Cape Gallery Byron Bay

Public Collections

Byron Bay Shire Council Byron Bay

Aitutaki Lagoon Resort Cook Islands

Sheraton International Fiji

The Rarotongan Cook Islands

Edgewater Resort Cook Islands

Mackay Harrison Gallery Ballina

Books Illustrated

“European Travel Diary”

“Vegetables” (with Rosemary Stanton)

Theatre Set Design

“Oklahoma”,

“Travelling North”,

”Caravan”

“Money & Friends”,

“Pirates of Penzanze”

Art Prizes

1986 Southern Cross Arts Festival

1987 Peoples Choice Award S.C.A.F.

1988 North Coast Art Awards

1994 Trinity Art Prize

1995 Southern Cross Arts Festival

1996 Southern Cross Arts Festival

1999 Southern Cross Arts Festival Ceramics

Peoples Choice Lismore City Art Prize

2000 Watercolour section S.C.A.F.

Portrait Commissions

Queenie Ashton Actress

Peter Rushforth Potter

Sue Cruikshank Singer/Comedian

Linda Dean OAM

Joan Williams OAM

Private Collections

USA

France

Canada

Ireland

Germany

United Kingdom

Greece

Australia