Claudia Jowitt

Claudia Jowitt is an artist who moves between the two and three-dimensional, allowing sculptural force, and the three-dimensional, to pull on her two-dimensional painted surfaces. There is also an interaction in her conceptual concerns with an ongoing investigation of the feminine in art and the insertion of place into abstraction.


In Jowitt’s work, place is the moana, the ocean which binds the Pacific, and Jowitt's Pakeha and Fijian heritage. Her mix of Pasifika and European abstraction is distinctive, pertinent and personal - operating to push the borders of European traditions away from eurocentrism.

In addition, there is a challenge to mid-century, modern, masculine notions of pure painting with all its disdain for the decorative, Jowitt's paintings are a feminine and feminist reclaiming of luscious surface. Notions of purity are also subverted with the inclusion of found elements, which speak to location and identity. Reflecting her partial Fijian heritage, several of the works incorporate masi (Fijian tapa cloth), magimagi (coconut husk cord) and shell as well as plant, stone and leather.

These richly textured and layered paintings in pearlescent pastels seem to test the limits of what paint can do. Here all sorts of tools and kitchen implements - from icing bags and decorator tips to tile grouting combs - are employed to squeeze, mould and push oil and acrylic paint into distinctive surfaces that are almost sculptural reliefs.

Claudia Jowitt completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2015. She has also studied at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2016, she was the inaugural Tautai Pacific Arts Trust Artist in Residence at the Dunedin School of Art. She has been exhibiting since completing her undergraduate degree at AUT in 2009 and was included in an exhibition of four Pacific women artists at Enjoy in Wellington. She has work in the University of Auckland and Wallace Collections as well as in many private collections.


Sigalaka I
2021
Claudia Jowitt
bronze
210 x 160 x 35mm
Sigalaka I
2021
Claudia Jowitt
bronze
210 x 160 x 35mm
Voka III
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic, cotton cord, leather offcuts, bronze powder, resin on panel
325 x 275 x 55 mm
Voka III
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic, cotton cord, leather offcuts, bronze powder, resin on panel
325 x 275 x 55 mm
Voka I
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic, bronze powder & resin on panel
325 x 290 x 65 mm
Voka I
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic, bronze powder & resin on panel
325 x 290 x 65 mm
Lomaloma I
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with paua shell & Fijian vau on panel with painted clay frame
225 x 225 x 45 mm
Lomaloma I
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with paua shell & Fijian vau on panel with painted clay frame
225 x 225 x 45 mm
Lomaloma I (side view)
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with paua shell & Fijian vau on panel with painted clay frame
225 x 225 mm
Lomaloma I (side view)
2020
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with paua shell & Fijian vau on panel with painted clay frame
225 x 225 mm
Lobaka Levu II
2020
Claudia Jowitt
painted fibreglass cast (Quinacridone Magenta) in edition of 6 & 2 APs
210 diameter x 230 mm
Lobaka Levu II
2020
Claudia Jowitt
painted fibreglass cast (Quinacridone Magenta) in edition of 6 & 2 APs
210 diameter x 230 mm
Lobaka I
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
22 x 56 x 16 mm
Lobaka I
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
22 x 56 x 16 mm
Lobaka X
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
15 x 65 x 14 mm
Lobaka X
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
15 x 65 x 14 mm
Lobaka II
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
26 diameter x 25 mm
Lobaka II
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
26 diameter x 25 mm
Lobaka III
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
28 diameter x 30 mm
Lobaka III
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
28 diameter x 30 mm
Lobaka IV
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
30 x 72 x 18 mm
Lobaka IV
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
30 x 72 x 18 mm
Lobaka V
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
47 diameter x 30 mm
Lobaka V
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
47 diameter x 30 mm
Lobaka VI
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
45 x 47 x 14 mm
Lobaka VI
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
45 x 47 x 14 mm
Lobaka VII
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
29 x 49 x 15 mm
Lobaka VII
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
29 x 49 x 15 mm
Lobaka VIII
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
30 x 69 x 12 mm
Lobaka VIII
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze
30 x 69 x 12 mm
Lobaka IX
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze

39 diameter x 31 mm
Lobaka IX
2019
Claudia Jowitt
waxed bronze in bronze or white bronze in edition of 6 in each type of bronze

39 diameter x 31 mm
Civa XI
2019
Claudia Jowitt
Acrylic, coloured freshwater pearls and kanzawa coloured silver leaf on civa (mother of pearl) shell with custom hook and wall fitting
Civa XI
2019
Claudia Jowitt
Acrylic, coloured freshwater pearls and kanzawa coloured silver leaf on civa (mother of pearl) shell with custom hook and wall fitting
Vosa ni ua VII
2018
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with found lase kata (red coral), dried lumi (seaweed), qari (crab) and cawaki (sea urchin) shell from Savusavu on Fijian vau mounted on canvas panel
248 x 195 mm framed
Vosa ni ua VII
2018
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with found lase kata (red coral), dried lumi (seaweed), qari (crab) and cawaki (sea urchin) shell from Savusavu on Fijian vau mounted on canvas panel
248 x 195 mm framed
Vosa ni ua VI
2018
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with found objects from Savusavu on Fijian vau mounted on canvas
224 x 170 mm framed
Vosa ni ua VI
2018
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic with found objects from Savusavu on Fijian vau mounted on canvas
224 x 170 mm framed
Viscera IV
2016
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic on paper
530 x 410 mm framed
Viscera IV
2016
Claudia Jowitt
acrylic on paper
530 x 410 mm framed
Na Ceva XII
2016
Claudia Jowitt
Magimagi, Masi, Leather offcuts, Linen, Acrylic and Oil on panel mounted masi
200 x 200 mm
Na Ceva XII
2016
Claudia Jowitt
Magimagi, Masi, Leather offcuts, Linen, Acrylic and Oil on panel mounted masi
200 x 200 mm
Na Ceva XI
2016
Claudia Jowitt
Magimagi, Masi, Leather offcuts, Linen, Acrylic and Oil on panel mounted masi
200 x 250 mm
Na Ceva XI
2016
Claudia Jowitt
Magimagi, Masi, Leather offcuts, Linen, Acrylic and Oil on panel mounted masi
200 x 250 mm