Nancy Synnestvedt

I’ve been fascinated with art materials and projects ever since I can remember, and my preferred childhood activities were always indoors at the dining room table: drawing, painting, making paper dolls, Christmas ornaments, jewellery, cards and gifts. My favourite school subject was art, even though I was rarely satisfied with my work because it could never measure up to the splendid and polished imaginings in my head.

 

From both sides of the family, I come honestly by my love of art-making: my maternal grandfather, Gilbert Smith, a Vermont landscape painter who eventually made a living by selling his work from a roadside shop; my mother, whose early landscapes and later abstract paintings nurtured me as much as our friendship of mutual interests; my paternal grandmother, many times a first prize winner in the Philadelphia flower show;  my aunt Beth, artist and art teacher;  the cousins on both sides who are professional art- makers; the distant relative whose huge and beautiful painting I accidentally discovered and admired while travelling in our ancestral land of Norway.

 

But in spite of the obvious, I never thought of being a professional artist until I was gut-punched by an out-of-the-blue letter from an acquaintance who had decided to go to art school. The intense jealousy I felt made me immediately shelve my plans for being a school psychologist, and begin preparing a folio of work under Carole Shepheard, a well-known NZ printmaker and art teacher. I also did art history courses at the University of Auckland while my children were young, in preparation for applying to art school. There was no question about my career from then on, although I took a long and inspiring detour into the teaching of art for 12 years, after getting my degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and design.

 

Teaching art was never an obstacle to producing my own work. Unlike some artists, who teach because they have to, I found great joy in planning programmes and watching my students progress in skills and understanding. The assignments I gave them were often inspiring enough to serve as springboards for my own work, and during my teaching years I participated regularly in group and solo exhibitions. A school holiday for me meant solid time in the studio. My mother visited us every other year in New Zealand at that time, and the two of us painted quietly and tirelessly, side by side. During my teaching years I also attended workshops from time to time, with New Zealand artists Agnes Wood, Don Peebles, Doris Lusk, Jane Zusters, Alistair Nisbet-Smith and Sue Daley, among others.

 

My early subjects were still life and architectural landscape—looking always for the structure underneath, and always with an emphasis on colour, usually vivid. Colour and structure are the two constants in my work, and before long I came to love abstraction as the best way to showcase these elements. When I realized I was sensitive to chemicals and solvents, I switched from oil paints to acrylics and discovered that they made it possible for me to do many layers with only short drying times in between. What then became a signature of my style are the partially obscured marks from previous layers that enrich the surface and give the painting a sense of depth.

 

Trips to various destinations inspired many new series based on the colours and structures from that area: Italy, Mexico, the American Southwest, South Island and Great Barrier Island, NZ.