Claudia Jowitt (b. 1989) is a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland–based artist of Pākehā and iTaukei (Fijian) heritage whose multi‑dimensional practice rethinks the boundaries of painting through sculptural form, material hybridity, and cultural resonance. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts (University of Auckland), a Bachelor of Art and Design (Hons), a Bachelor of Visual Arts from AUT University, and studied at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Jowitt’s work is defined by an exploratory engagement with surface, texture, and process. Moving beyond the flat field of painting, she constructs dense, layered surfaces that often verge on relief and sculptural presence. She combines acrylic and oil paints with an array of tools—from kitchen implements and icing bags to combs and spatulas—to manipulate paint into richly textured landscapes that foreground the physicality of mark‑making and invite sustained, intimate engagement. Her works frequently incorporate found and culturally specific materials such as masi (Fijian tapa cloth), magimagi (coconut husk cord), paua and other shells, leather, linen, bronze powders, resin, plant and stone elements, embedding these into compositions that evoke oceanic ecologies and ancestral geographies.

Her recent major exhibition, Uana: Carried by the Waves at The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, marked a pivotal point in her career. This first solo public gallery exhibition situates her sculptural approach to paint within the rhythms and textures of the Pacific—uana meaning “to be carried away by the waves” in vosa vakaviti (Fijian)—bringing together wall‑based and three‑dimensional works that flow, pool, and grow like water and reef structures. The exhibition interweaves cultural memory with contemporary materiality, with paint and embedded organic motifs articulating both lived experience and ancestral connection to the waitui (the sea).

In addition to Dowse, Jowitt has exhibited extensively in group and solo contexts. At Melanie Roger Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, she organised and participated in Tali—a collaborative exhibition weaving histories and practices across South Pacific contexts— which situated her richly textured practice alongside artists rethinking abstraction through gender, identity, and cultural narrative.

Jowitt’s engagement with other thematic exhibitions has also explored ideas of ecology, ancestral knowledge, and ritual, including botanical and oceanic imagery as carriers of cultural and affective meaning. Her works across these contexts interrogate how abstraction, surface, and materiality can carry stories of place, heritage, and ecological awareness.

Beyond her studio practice, Jowitt contributes to the wider arts ecosystem through public service and governance. She serves on the board of Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, providing strategic oversight and advocating for contemporary art practices, and supports Art Makers Aotearoa, an organisation promoting the visibility and development of contemporary artists in Aotearoa. These roles inform and intersect with her artistic practice, reflecting her commitment to fostering cultural dialogue, mentorship, and community engagement across the visual arts sector.

Through her integration of paint, material experimentation, and sculptural processes, Claudia Jowitt continually expands the possibilities of contemporary painting—situating her work at the intersection of Pacific cultural heritage, ecological attentiveness, and relational, embodied approaches to making and seeing.