There are no obstacles in Carmel Jenkin’s work. Her nudes are for: ‘getting emotion out there’ . To achieve this, she brings the nude right up to the picture plane, to directly involve the viewer with the subject. While there is an element of abstraction in her work, the female ambience, as if the artist’s eye got so close she could see the nude as emotion in a series of curved shapes. These works are raw and immediate and usually have a distorted and linear form. They may portray a sense of naked angst but, at the same time, show possession of a deeply spiritual soul. At the risk of exclusionism one wonders if these works, drawn by a woman, are a language to be read and pondered by other women. Either way, Carmel Jenkin is engaged in a passionate journey of artistic and life discovery through the female body.
“Bromelia” Plantae Selectae published by Cristoph Jacob Trew in Nuremberg in 1750. Copper engraving with original hand colour. Trew was a physician and botanist and published his works based on the drawings of Ehret, highly acclaimed artist and ‘gardener’ of his time. Linnaeus, the author of the order of plants as we know it today was so impressed by this work he wrote “The miracles of our century in the natural sciences are your work”. To this day these engravings remain some of the most highly acclaimed and sort after botanical interpretations.
