 Justine Kerr is a Scottish artist living and working in Nova
Scotia, Canada. She works in stone, felt and mixed
media drawings. She studied Fine Art at the University of Dundee,
specializing in sculpture at Duncan of Jordanstone College
of Art and Design, completing her degree in 1998 with two
children in tow.
Justine chose to attend NSCAD in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada,
on an exchange programme in 1994 where she stayed and blossomed
for two semesters. This was to have a profound impact on
this young artist as this was where she met her future husband
and also where she first carved
Italian marble. Justine was
in utopia and found her true calling in life as a stone carver.
Justine has been inspired by her daughter Jura, who attended
the South Shore Waldorf School where children learn the craft
of felting and making woollen dolls with fleece. Drawn to the
beautiful, vibrant colours of the fleece, Justine started creating
felt pictures in the spring of 2005. She loves the physicality
and tactile quality of fleece as well as the colours which
stir her heart, creating joy within. |
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She layers the colours to create a rich depth, evoking a
sense of three-dimensionality, similar to working in oil
pastels. She uses a felting needle to pin down the form initially.
She then water-felts the piece, a process which reinforces
the fusion of the fibres, creating a more stable, permanent
structure. Justine uses fine quality, synthetic procion dyes
and also collects local plants in the summer for natural
dyes.
She loves the contrast of working in soft
sheep's wool with
hard stone carving. She finds that they create an equilibrium:
felting and drawing are less intense, faster, more immediate
and lighter while, in contrast, working the stone has a more
meditative quality; it is slower, much more physically demanding
and therefore more intense.
The Nova Scotia Art Bank purchased her art work
for its collection in the spring of 2006 (see News).
> Artist's Statement |
