MICHAELIE CRAWFORD + JENNIFER TURPIN

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor of Arts, (Honours in Art History), University of Sydney
• Sculpture 1, Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, Italy
• Foundation Course, Sir John Cass School of Arts, London
• Bachelor of Visual Arts (Sculpture), Sydney College of the Arts
• Graduate Diploma (Visual Arts), Sydney College of the Arts

Jennifer is an environmental artist, experienced in the area of public art where she has produced and managed large scale artworks for the past 25 years. Many of these artworks are associated with environmental restoration projects. Often described as ‘collaborations with nature’ most of the artworks are kinetic, moving in response to the nature’s elemental energies of wind, water or tide. Artworks have been both temporary and permanent. Jennifer has collaborated with Michaelie Crawford for over 20 years on the large-scale public projects. Together, as Turpin + Crawford Studio, they worked on community environmental projects such as the Memory Line for the Restoring the Water Project, and produced permanent commissioned artworks such as Halo in Sydney’s Central Park, Tied to Tide in Sydney Harbour and Water Falls at Sydney Park. They have also worked on urban design projects with multidisciplinary teams such as at Barangaroo and have created public art strategies and plans for urban and green fields developers, bringing their artist’s creativity and cultural knowledge to each unique project. Whilst on a post graduate 3 year travelling scholarship in Europe and UK in the 1980s Jennifer worked as a performance artist with Station House Opera, a formative time where she developed her curiosity and playful investigation of natural phenomena such as gravity leading to early artworks involving balance, counterbalance and the play of gravity and surface tension with water. The scale of her work has always been architectural and public, her interest focused on heightening perceptions through the transformation of large spaces and the creation of immersive environments. In 2016, a Churchill Fellowship took Jennifer to Iceland, Japan, Venice and the Netherlands to explore the culture of water in each of those places.

She is currently the Patron for the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize. In 2018 she became a Founding Director of Studio TCS.

Jennifer likes making things - artworks, presents, installations for parties - snorkelling in seaweed forests, bushwalking, cycling and trying to play the harp.