Bridget Bidwill

Bridget Bidwill was born in the Wairarapa, New Zealand, in 1956. She studied at the Ilam School of Arts at Canterbury University, completing her Diploma of Fine Arts in Painting in 1977.

To take the simplest elements with a minimal palette and create a series of paintings is a task that has occupied Bidwill throughout her career. She uses her personal alphabet of shapes, merged with hints of reality (vessels, leaves and bottles) to create works of pictorial eloquence. Their reference to ‘still-life’ is evident, even in the most abstract of her paintings.

Bidwill’s sublime use of colour was initially influenced by her years spent in the Renaissance cities of Europe. Subtle tonalities evoke atmosphere and space, enhanced by the depths of the pastel, or the transparency of oil stick.

Bidwill’s recent work is richer in colour, with an increasing use of texture either through painting onto layered or collaged canvas, or onto textured wood panels. The vessels and forms float within the space, but sometimes reveal the layers of work which lay beneath.

‘One of my primary aims is to use the medium of painting to evoke feeling and thought. Just as instrumental and classical music needs no lyrics to create its atmosphere and meaning, an abstract painting does not need to copy reality to prove its intellectual and aesthetic work‘. – Bridget Bidwill

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS AT ARTIS

2015 – A New Studio, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2011 – New Paintings, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2007 – Recent Work, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2004 – Recent Painting, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2001 – Innuendo, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland

ACADEMIC HISTORY

1975-1977 Diploma of Fine Arts in Painting University of Canterbury, New Zealand
1978-1980 Paper restoration at the National Archives, Wellington, NZ
1980-1982 Lived in Italy

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2015 – A New Studio, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2011 – New Paintings, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2007 – Recent Work, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2004 – Recent Painting, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2001 – Innuendo, ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
2000 – Milford Galleries, Dunedin
1998 – ARTIS Gallery, Auckland
1997 – Grove Mill Winery, Marlborough
1996 – Brooker Gallery, Wellington
1993 – Brooker Gallery, Wellington
1992 – Brooker Gallery, Wellington
1992 – Gregory Flint Gallery, Auckland
1991 – Gregory Flint Gallery, Auckland
1990 – Gallery 5, Auckland
1989 – Gallery 5, Auckland
1986 – Bowen Galleries, Wellington
1985 – Artis Gallery, Auckland
1984 – Bowen Galleries, Wellington

COMMISSIONS

1985 – Series of six works on paper for Cobham Hall School, Kent, UK
1986 – Painting for VIP Lounge, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
1987 – Mural for Rialto Advertising, Wellington
1995 – Painting for ‘NZ Funds Ltd’, Auckland

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

The National Bank, Auckland & Wellington
Telecom New Zealand Ltd, Wellington
Victoria University, Wellington
Chapman Tripp, Auckland
James Wallace Charitable Arts Trust, Auckland
Waikato Polytech, Hamilton