Jenny Doležel (pronounced 'Doh-leh-zhel') is a multi-award-winning contemporary painter, printmaker and drawer. She was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1964 of New Zealand/Czechoslovakian ancestry. Her mother, Margo Doležel, was a talented painter and drawer, who encouraged Doležel's passion for art from an early age and continued to do so all her life. They are both related to Sir David Low, the New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist.
Drawing has always been the foundation of Doležel's art practice. She began drawing as soon as she could hold a crayon - about 2 years old. As a small child she remembers drawing in her mother's kitchen-studio while her mother painted at her easel, and where she learnt so much about art, such as colour theory and the great masters, to wonderful bed-time stories where her mother read to her or made up stories - transporting them both into another world. It was with these early experiences that Doležel learnt the power of the imagination to escape from and to decode the theatre of life. Doležel's oeuvre are allegories that examine themes such as human folly and resilience, the fragility of life and the complexity of relationships that are formed between beings.
Doležel graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1987, and received her first Creative New Zealand grant (then called 'Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Grant') the same year. In 1988 TVNZ's arts programme 'Kaleidoscope' made a documentary on Doležel and her art, directed by Roger Price.
Doležel has won 24 major art awards - mainly in painting - the first being the Rosemary Grice Award in 1983. Her awards include winning First Prize in the Overseas League Overseas Award in London, UK, in 1996, where her oil on canvas 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me' was given the highest of honours of all the Commonwealth countries' entries; also she was the Paramount Winner the same year in the Wallace Art Awards with her oil on canvas 'Charm School'; to winning the 1st Prize in 2006 in the Parklane Art Awards as well as being the Supreme Winner in the 2006 Team McMillan BMW Bonnet Art Awards.
Artist-in-residence programmes that Doležel has participated in include the Rita Angus Residency in Wellington, NZ; the Fresno Art Museum Residency, CA, USA, and the Goethe Institute in Berlin, Germany - as a cultural scholarship.
Doležel has lectured in painting and printmaking at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, and tutored at several art school programmes in the mid-90's and 2000's. She chose to not continue to lecture or tutor - although she loved both - due to so many artistic opportunities she wanted to pursue, and ongoing artistic projects.
Murals by Doležel grace many city spaces, having received numerous public art commissions, such as 'The City Dreaming', SkyCity, Auckland; 'The Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay', for The Boathouse, Sydney, Australia; and 'The Circus of Life', the Aotea Arts Centre, Auckland.
Doležel exhibits widely throughout New Zealand, with solo exhibitions, also in the US and Europe. She has participated in many international Print Biennales, Triennales, and group exhibitions of her work in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the US and Europe.
Her work is represented in collections in most public art galleries and museums in New Zealand; and also in Australia and Europe, as well as in numerous private collections throughout the world.