The Surrealism Website
Rozi Demant (1984 - )
Rozi Demant was born and brought up in the small coastal town of Whakatane in the North Island of New Zealand.
She had no formal art training, but her mother, also called Rozi, was a sculptor and her father created welded sculptures, and made furniture. She recalls "When I was in third Form, my parents used to make me stay at home on the weekend to paint. At first, I used to hate it, but then I started to enjoy doing it more and I wanted to stay home all of the time just so I could paint."
Her paintings proved so engaging that she had five solo exhibitions before reaching the age of 24, and in these she sold all her works. Her paintings are now enthusiastically collected internationally.
Her paintings usually involve female figures bearing a striking resemblance to the artist herself. These are often shown wearing lingerie and accompanied by birds and various animals. She creates tableaux, often darkly lit, in which her figures mysteriously interact. This magical realist world is peopled with idiosyncratic elements drawn from the pictorial language she has devised. Usually there is some underlying narrative or programmed aspect to her scenarios. Her work is very detailed and precise. She has a mastery of moulding and lighting three dimensional forms, creating perspective and believable shifts of scale. Her style is close to Pop surrealism, but without the grosser elements that usually characterise Low Brow.
Rozi Demant's Official Website www.rozidemant.com
