Mirrored - Lucy Jenson

Lucy Jenson -

My body of work is intended to have a calm feeling surrounding it. No piece should make the viewer feel uncomfortable or anxious. I focused on the contrasts of natural and architectural lines to represent the experiences and memories I’ve had in the more recent years of my life. It’s been a pretty chaotic season of life so it felt it was important to draw attention to the calm and peaceful experiences I’ve had that maybe don’t always get the attention. Many of my pieces are representations of places I’ve been that give me peace. Whether that is an exact place or the feeling of a place each piece is meant to capture the peace I felt at that time in that place.

One example of these experiences is my piece tradition. Tradition is a painting of the one sonic in Durango, Colorado. It’s down the hill and to the left from the college campus there. For someone who does not live in Durango I have been there a lot, but everytime has been with some of the most special people in my life. Nothing about Sonic itself is particularly memorable, but the people and experience associated with this particular location make it a special place to me. And like tradition most of my pieces hold this same importance. Many of my pieces are influenced by other artists as well. I would say there are three main artists that influence my work, and are not particularly influential in the visual artist community. The three women are Steffany Gretzinger, Amanda Cook and Justina Stevens. Gretzinger and Cook and both musicians whose music captures the exact feeling I wanted to express in my art and Stevens is an artist whose style I love. Stevens also has a very similar influence as me which made her art more interesting to explore for me. I used a few different techniques for my work. The two main mediums I used were watercolor on watercolor paper and acrylic on canvas. At the start I was very skilled or experienced with watercolor but I had used acrylic in my previous art courses. After exploring watercolor however I realized that I really enjoyed the freedom that watercolor can provide. This made it so that a frequently switched between the two mediums. It just so happens that the two places that I feel the most at peace are the ocean and the mountains so, I would say I got fairly good at painting trees. The specific technique I used I really just learned from experimenting repeatedly. I think eventually I landed on a repeatable, fun and realistic looking way of representing the natural nature of trees. I didn’t have quite enough time to master painting the ocean however.

When I was laying out my artwork I wanted to make sure it was represented in a vertical layout. I did this to bring the viewer's eyes upwards. I have many pieces that have a more vertical representation so it was important to me that that is how they were displayed. Having pieces like bright and To the Mountains represented at angles that bring the eye upwards was a big part of how I chose to present my work. It was also important that the more architectural piece and more nature focused pieces were mixed with each other and not entirely separate.

Evergreen, watercolor on watercolor paper, 21 x 21 cm

The intent behind this piece is to incorporate both music and art into one piece. This piece is inspired by Steffany Gretzinger and Amanda Cook. The person on the piece is Steffany and so is the spotify thing. The title is inspired by Cook as well as the background watercolor. I wanted to make something that had meaning and for me this does. It combines two worlds that I love.

Home, watercolor on watercolor paper, 45 x 30 cm

Originally this piece was much more simple then it is now. I wanted to focus on exact architectural lines and design a house. I have experience with floor plans and using software like sketchup so I wanted to create one of my designs in a form that was more physical and tangible. After making the piece my junior year I revisited the piece my senior year to add more detail.

Tradition, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

Tradition may seem like a strange title for a painting of a sonic, but there is a reason. I wanted to create a piece as a reminder of some of the best times of my life. By using bright neon looking colors in contrast with darker tones a sense of hope is created. The exact line and perspective help create depth. I like this piece because it shows a stark contrast between architectural and nature lines.

Closer, watercolor on watercolor paper, 28 x 38 cm

In this piece I wanted to keep the architecture and nature aspects of my other pieces from last year. In this piece I was inspired by a painting I made a while ago that's hanging in my room. I was inspired by the circle in the middle and from there I came up with this idea. The idea is that the circle gives you a closer look at what is inside the forest. It also expresses the idea that the architecture is surrounded by nature instead of the other way around.

(37.6570919, -107.7983360), acrylic on canvas board, 35.5 x 27.5 cm

A lot of my work is inspired by places I’ve been. I normally don’t like winter but this particular year I went up to the durango mountains with friends and we made some amazing memories. So I made this piece to represent that time. I created this entirely off of my memory of the exact location which is why I have titled this piece with the location it’s based on.

To the Mountains, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 45.5 cm

Originally I started this piece when I moved rooms. I was redoing the space and wanted to add some more art. I started this piece and then got really busy and wasn’t able to finish. Jump forward to this year I was running out of ideas and remembered I had this piece just sitting at my house. So I revisited this and this art piece was the result. The mountains are my favorite place so this piece was fun to create.

Paia on Front Street, acrylic on canvas board, 25 x 30 cm

I made this piece at the same time as To the Mountains. It is another location that has good memories associated with it that was also made almost entirely from memory. This time it’s a memory I made with my family on our trip to Hawaii. We’d rescheduled this trip nearly 4 times so to finally get to go and see this view everyday was a blessing.

Bright, acrylic on canvas, 43 x 55 cm

This piece is one of my final pieces of the year. I’ve always loved the state of Oregon and have been fascinated by the landscape of the coasts. I haven’t been able to visit though so I wanted to create a piece that represented the beauty of the state. Playing with light and lines in this piece has been really fun and I think it’s been a fun challenge when it comes to technique.