Artist Describes Her Work

Press, Volume C, Issue 29487, 13 April 1961, Page 2

Artist Describes Her Work

Only two students from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, have paintings in the Canterbury Society of Arts autumn exhibition this year. They are Mr Desmond Helmore and Miss Shona Cowan.

A third-year student, Miss Cowan is exhibiting her work for the first time. Three of her paintings “Still Life,” “Berenice” and “Crabs”—were seen at the private view last evening at the Durham Street Art Gallery.

In an interview yesterday. Miss Cowan described her style of painting as “emotional.” “I paint the way I feel. I never like to copy a subject exactly as I see it,” she said. Miss Cowan’s picture of the crabs demonstrates this feeling well. Vivid colour is used and the crabs seem to be moving all ways over the canvas. "I loathe crabs and those ones were actually walking around,” she said. “I found them on the beach when I was on holiday in Gisborne. The painting was done in a terrific hurry.”

Frizes Originally from Otautau near Invercargill, Miss Cowan began to take her painting seriously while she was at secondary school. A pupil at Southland Girls’ High School, she won first prize in a poster competition for pupils of all the secondary schools in the district. But the reward did not justify the work, she said. The poster’s theme was "kindness to animals” and the winner received a collection of books on the subject

At 17 she was named joint winner in a competition organised by a newspaper and this resulted in the featured display of her entry in a shop. People are Miss Cowan's favourite subjects. Her “Berenice” is a nude and the only one in the exhibition. For models she uses her two sisters and girlfriends of her own and theirs.

“At one time I thought of concentrating on fashion drawing,” she said. “But now I have changed my mind. My grandfather did fashion designing in England and South Africa. He was the only other member of our family to take up any form of drawing or painting.” Miss Cowan likes to have a background “noise” while she is working, so she always has the radio on no matter what the programme. “I am usually so absorbed I don’t hear it anyway, but I like to have it there.” She always paints in oils

and the “thicker the better.” The crabs were painted with her fingers and a sharp knife with only a few brush strokes to complete the picture. Like many other students, Miss Cowan is wondering what to do with her talent when she has gained her diploma. “I don’t want to be a teacher because I am not very good at explaining how and why I paint and I am not sure if I could explain art satisfactorily to a class,” she said. “But I do want to settle down for at least a year after 1 leave the school. I feel it would be so easy to drift once you leave the work there.

“I do want to travel and I want to go to the Academic Juliane in Paris. I would also like to go to Italy—even more, I think.”