“My path to painting has been diverse, challenging and interesting. Curiosity and observation drive my art, but it is life’s experiences in New Zealand and overseas that enrich it. The changing patterns, rhythms and textures of life and landscape captivate me. To summarise - I respond to vision and I paint my response.”
— Jann Collins

Jann Collins (b. 1945) is an artist based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Jann’s first memories of creating colour are as a very young child in Island Bay, Wellington, experimenting with dirt, leaves, petals and water, mixing combinations in patty pans and marvelling as the “paint” dried to reveal colours on paper. This awakening led to a lifelong passion for colour and design.

Jann recalls, as a young mother in Australia in the late 1970s, creating abstract paintings in her mind, carefully selecting the colour palette and design, drifting off to sleep with an artwork in her mind’s eye. But it was not by painting that Jann expressed her art for many years. Rather, Jann designed interior spaces and created fabric art. Colour has always been deeply felt by Jann – its subtleties and affect evident to her; her internal response incessant, it could not be ignored.

While Jann always knew that she would ultimately paint, it was not until she was in her early seventies that she did. It was a swift change from creating with fabric to creating with paint, and it was both fulfilling and revealing. Jann was prolific, painting every day, a lifetime of imaginings to capture on canvas. Jann notes her influences as those things that have moved her – other artworks or emotions triggered by events or memories – sometimes unconsciously but revealed as the artwork evolved. Jann paints on a flat surface, working on an artwork from all sides, a technique she finds freedom in.

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