My painting 'In the Listening Room' is an allegory in which reality blends with fiction, and boundaries between humanity and nature become blurred - revealing the fragility of life and the complexity of relationships that are formed between beings.

The room in which the creatures inhabit - with it's spatial ambiguity and playful toying with abstraction - provides an arena to embody one's otherness, one's uniqueness - to be heard. Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life skills one can have.

Here the room is saying those two, rare, magic words: 'Go on'. Therefore, for example, the higher, central plant-like form that grows from the yellow pot, is releasing it's protective neck-brace - to flourish, while below, a red caped duck-like figure, unself-consciously collects the introspective heads that float through the picture space, but with a net far too small..

Non-conformity, freedom and entertainment have always been active ingredients in my art, and here they seemed ever more relevant as I painted this when the new millennium dawned.

To have the good fortune of being in the highly privileged position of managing all this on a few square metres of canvas - especially as a female artist (with paintings no longer relegated to having been painted by 'Anonymous') - there is nothing comparable to this.

-Jenny Dolezel-