JEANNE YOUNG
ARTIST STATEMENT
I’ve been strongly drawn to art from the time I was a child, I was 7 when
I decided I wanted to be an artist. Since then I’ve had an insatiable desire to hone my skills so I could better communicate my ideas. I wish to capture a moment in time with a clarity and immediacy that draws people in and makes my experiences their own. I paint because I feel I could no sooner quit expressing myself through art than I could stop breathing. Just like fishing, there’s no such thing as a bad day of painting.
In choosing tools or techniques, I seek out the best answer for each task. Some subjects cry out for vivid detail while others seem best stated with simplicity and boldness. Painting from life is just as vital to my process as spending time in my studio. Experiencing life is what excites me to begin the creative process. Plein air painting lends itself well to capturing the feeling of a place and gives me a chance to study and record things a camera will miss. Back in my studio, I can explore more detail than the plein air painting allows. If I set up a still life, it’s with things in my home; if I paint people or scenery, it’s something I have experienced that has captured my attention. I try to keep my tools basic and continue to hone my skills so that when people see my paintings, they see the subject and don’t have to think about the tools or person that created it. I want them to be drawn into the moment I’ve captured without being distracted by the process or the person that came before.
I want my subject matter and the way I’ve handled it to sparkle with the spice of life and warm people’s hearts to the beauty in their everyday surroundings. I prefer bold colors and dramatic lighting in my figurative works because I want the story of these people’s lives to be the first thing a person notices when they walk in a room. When I’m working on figure paintings I’m reminded that each person is unique and has an important story to tell. Right now, the story I want to tell is that of modern Alaskans.
