COX GALLERY: Unstable Ground – Janet Jeffs

[Above: Shoalhaven]

Janet Jeffs, COX Gallery artist, on her exhibition Unstable Ground.

My work is deeply intuitive and personal, as I am inspired to describe my own experiences of nature and my feelings of awe and vulnerability in its presence. For example, I am attracted to a sublime and alluring fear of swimming at night in dark and deep water. Underwater, literally and metaphorically, represents a hidden, dangerous and unknown world oscillating uneasily between surface and depth. I deliberately use this visual obscurity in my painting practice to create a sense of agitation and disruption, just below the surface in an unfathomable world. Fiction author Cormac McCarthy’s (1933-2023) evocative language inspires my use of visual motifs, such as whirlpools and voids, to convey a sense of foreboding and instability.

The water was black and warm and she turned in the lake and spread her arms in the water and the water was so dark and so silky and she watched across the still black surface.

[Above left: Surfacing   |   Above right: Waterfall]

My source imagery for painting is from my home, Ballalaba Farm near the Shoalhaven River on Yuin country. Firsthand experiences of fire, flood and drought inspire my feelings of the sublime that emerge as a visual manifestation of merging water and land.

Janet won the COX Prize as part of the School of Art & Design’s Emerging Artist Support Scheme in 2025.

[Above left: Autumn   |   Above Right: Farringdon Crossing]

Unstable Ground will be shown at the COX Gallery:

When: 7 September – 23 October, with the gallery open 9am-5pm
Where: The COX Gallery is located at 8 Thesiger Ct, Deakin ACT 2600