An art oasis is revealed when travelling up the garden path to artist Jean Sheridan’s home nestled in the woods at the top of Red Hill. The pavers are inlaid with colourful mosaics; the flower beds are full of sculptures; the exterior walls feature mosaic vines, birds, and blossoms. Inside, the walls are covered with paintings, the chairs and couches draped with colourful textile art. Jean has made all of it.
Her studio is a place where she can create sculpture, woodwork, metalwork, and anything else her mind can conjure. The creative gears are always turning. She’s attracted to a concept more than a particular technique. There probably isn’t anything Jean couldn’t make. She was born to be an artist.
Both her parents were creative thinkers and makers. Her father was a mechanical and electrical engineer. He helped pioneer the Cochlear implant. He also loved woodturning. Her mother, a PhD in Philosophy, enjoys spinning and weaving. She passed the skills on to Jean. Her parents were always thinking, making and doing and so was Jean.
Traditional school didn’t suit her creative spirit. She went to a progressive, alternative school called Preshil where all of her subjects were taught through art. There was no uniform. Instead of PE, they camped. Students made whatever they needed to nurture their creativity. They built the kiln to make ceramics. Jean remembers making dolls with Mirka Mora.
Exploring a concept engaged her from the very beginning. “Creating art is my way of understanding humanity and existence. It doesn’t matter whether that is cooking, drawing, painting, sculpting, printmaking or any other kind of creativity. Art is a diary of my existence,” Jean says. She’s currently experimenting with airplane dope (lacquer) and tissue paper on wire to make translucent sculpture that will survive the elements.
“A lot of my making is about functionality. This rug under my feet is made from old jeans that the op shop was throwing out. The curtains are knitted. I know the sheep the fleece came from because I spun and knitted their wool. I rendered the house and then made the tessellate for the mosaics in the walls. I pull old jumpers apart and remake them differently,” she says. Her hands are always busy.
Jean studied art at Caulfied Tech (now Monash) majoring in Sculpture with a minor in Printmaking. In those days, students learned all the arts. They had six hours of drawing instruction a week and were expected to be able to realistically render the human form. They were taught art history. They learned to weld, cast in bronze, concrete, and plaster, and make ceramics. Jean returned to Monash to complete a Post Graduate degree in Sculpture.
To build a house, you need to know how to build the foundation. It’s the same thing with art
Currently she’s welding the framework for a sculpture in concrete, a skill she learned in art school. “The medium has to fit the concept. To build a house, you need to know how to build the foundation. It’s the same thing with art,” she says.
Jean likes sculpture best because she starts from nothing but a concept, then begins to fill the space. She loves the three-dimensional nature of it. There are so many facets to explore, not just shape and space, but shadow and light as well. Sculpture is a practical puzzle. She enjoys the engineering of it, of considering the angles and what they’ll become. “Possibility is my inspiration,” she says.
Jean moved to the Mornington Peninsula for a sculpture commission, working on enormous felled cypress trees along Bungower Road. She was the only female sculptor on site carving sculptures with a chainsaw in her short skirt and Blundstones. After that she worked all along the Peninsula not just as an artist, but also in hospitality, youth work and working with the homeless.
Jean has exhibited in galleries across Australia and overseas. She remembers doing ‘the beat’ in the early days when artists would take slides of their work around to galleries, but Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne actually pursued Jean to offer her a solo show. She got great reviews. They represented her for years. She is currently represented by Ryazanoff Gallery in Albert Park and the Blue Moon Collective in Red Hill.
“There is not a moment when I am not inspired. I like to hide away and make. I create art because there is something inside that needs to come out. I love figurative abstract sculpture. All my life I’ve been haunted by a figure coming out of the earth. You can see it in a lot of my work,” she says. Perhaps it’s the artist always emerging.
When she isn’t creating, she is teaching. “I have lots of skills so it’s nice passing on my skills to younger artists,” she says. Jean teaches a variety of workshops in her studio. She joined the Peninsula Studio Trail recently and enjoyed sharing her work with visitors on Open Studio exhibition days. To experience the heart of art, visit Jean’s studio and garden.
IG: @jeansheridanart
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