Elisabeth Kruger has refined her aesthetic over a career spanning four decades and her detailed works rely on an extensive set of technical and artistic skills. She is a master of oil paints, building layers through the application of thin glazes of paint to create deep visuals with subtle textures. Elisabeth has been greatly influenced by her background in textile art and quilting which drew her to the decorative arts and its activation of the intellect through visual stimuli. Early in her career, she developed these influences through a Moët & Chandon Fellowship and Arts Council residency at Besozzo, Italy. Her fascination with the European aesthetic is linked to their manipulation of landscape, the shaping of structures to achieve defined visual form. She has a personal passion for gardens, a theme that has recurred throughout her career, as a symbol of change and renewal. With this in mind, the audience must consider that, though her subject matter deals exclusively with nature, the human element is always present.
Elisabeth Kruger was born in Noumea, New Caledonia and lives and works in Canberra. She graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (majoring in Printmaking) at the ANU School of Art in 1985. In 1989 she was awarded the prestigious Moët & Chandon Fellowship and following this was granted an Arts Council residency at Besozzo, Italy. In 2010, a major survey exhibition of her work (from 1988-2010), curated by Jenny McFarlane was held at the Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra. Since her first solo exhibition at the Craft Association of the ACT in 1978, she has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. Her work appears in many major public and corporate collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art at University of WA, Artbank, ACT Legislative Assembly, ANZ Bank and Moët & Chandon (Epernay, France).
