Raymond Jennings is a New Zealand artist currently based in Hamilton. His house interior and shelf-life paintings offer us glimpses into New Zealand home and batch lifestyles with native bird and NZ landscape scenes often appearing through the windows.
My paintings and drawings are a positive expression of our world in form and colour, motion and character, radiance, and depth, with the energies of universal inspiration.
Raymond’s work carries a dynamic energy. His virtuoso colour arrangements, light and dark contrast, and strong sense of form and movement combine to offer inviting and lively house interiors. In his work, there is adept attention to spatial dynamics and dimensions coupled with a sense of stylised homeliness. Each room is laid out to draw us in – indeed, we feel as if we could almost step into them.
Born in New Zealand, Raymond has been an artist most of his life. He began painting and exhibiting at the age of twelve. Two years later, his work featured in a nationwide Society of Arts touring exhibition. He also painted a 20m mural inside Kamo High School library, Whangārei, and became a working member of the Northland Society of Arts at the age of fourteen. Raymond studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University, graduating in 1975.
A theatrical childhood, with both parents acting and producing plays, my father also being an eccentric physics teacher, and a family friend being a prominent architect, all introduced me to creative expression. Then, being introduced to oil painting on canvas at age twelve, with exhibitions and sales of work soon after confirmed my direction as an artist.
Raymond has exhibited in solo and group shows in New Zealand, the USA, and Singapore. He has been a finalist and prize winner in New Zealand arts competitions since 1977, including the Parklane Art Award and Auction (Auckland Museum), the James Wallace Art Awards (Auckland), the Duxton Art Awards (Wellington), the Molly Morpeth Canday Art Awards (Whakatāne), and the Waitakere Trust Art Awards (Auckland). He was a Parkin Drawing Award finalist in 2024 with his pen and ink drawing, Christo’s New York Studio – 1985. Raymond has completed many commissions for private and corporate clients and continues to be available for this work.
