Sandra-Jane Suleski

Sandra-Jane Suleski (née Kupiec) was born in Palmerston North in 1969 and has been living and working in Northland since 1994.

Though an avid lover of writing and poetry she turned to painting whilst residing in Greece in 1989, with her first public exhibition in New Zealand in 1991.

Sandra-Jane's oil paintings are unique, textural and vibrant containing strong predominantly figurative images with a purely emotive directive. Her paintings are often noted as being ''edgy, personal and pure of heart', and sometimes deemed controversial, and though they can feature symbolic elements of religion or literary history, they always remain contemporary and sympathetic to the subject matter expressed.

She has recently completed a large body of work, entitled “Love Icon”. These figurative pieces are presented as contemporary Icons encompassing strong images of love that represent the emotional and poignant stigmas of our time. They explore the realms of art, religion, literature and mythology and incorporate text and influence from various sources and her original poetry. Paintings include intricate portrayals of Salomé, Ophelia, The Virgin of Guadalupe, Pandora, Jeanne d’Arc ( Joan of Arc ), The Temple of Venus…

They are unique textural oil works on canvas, which, with both the use of palette knife and brush, adds a further dimension and deepens the aspect to the work.

Sandra-Jane has been strongly motivated to focus on the emotive strengths and downfalls of these women through her painting, not always bearing a true likeness to their looks, but how they are portrayed to her through their strengths/weaknesses, with colour, texture and prose.

Currently she is working on two new bodies of work, namely the completion of her Geisha-inspired series, exploring the decoration of the kimono and the faces behind it and her series of Angels, which examines the history, beauty and Fall of The Angel.

Sandra-Jane’s paintings are known to be included in private collections throughout New Zealand, Australia, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, U.S.A and Japan.