Artist Spotlight: Jenny Nelson
Jenny Nelson is a painter and arts educator. She attended Maine College of Art, Bard College, and the Lacoste School of the Arts in France. Jenny has been living in the Hudson Valley for over two decades, including a Residency at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony from 2004 - 2008. She has taught classes and workshops at Truro Center for the Arts, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Woodstock School of Art, and the Nantucket Artists Association, among others.
Jenny’s work has been shown at Tria Gallery, Hidell Brooks Gallery, and Carrie Haddad Gallery. She has guided hundreds of students to expand their skills in abstract painting through her in-person workshops and online courses.
We spoke with Jenny recently about finding shapes, the role intuition plays in her work, and how she navigates challenges in the studio. Enjoy the conversation. And Keep Painting.
Please tell us a little about yourself. How did you get your start as an artist?
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t making things. It has always been my natural inclination to communicate visually. I knew at a young age that I wanted to go to art school. I was lucky enough to finagle an enormous amount of time in art rooms throughout my school years. Classrooms felt claustrophobic, and the art room was the only place I felt I could thrive. I worked hard and received a scholarship to Maine College of Art and then attended Bard College.
Once out of school, I glued myself to a studio practice. I was painting from life and then the work organically shifted towards abstraction. Twenty-five years later, I have a solid yet ever evolving visual language that always offers me something new to think about.
Can you speak to the roles of addition and subtraction in your work? What about intuition?
There are several ways in which I begin a painting. One way is to activate the white canvas with an array of marks, lines, and areas of disparate colors. I work with oil paint and R&F Pigment Sticks®. The drying time differs depending on the pigment and application, which allows me to work in layers and sometimes wet on wet. This process lends itself to seeking and finding. I can pull back layers and uncover hidden lines or the ghost of a form.
Pigment Sticks® are a great drawing tool and mix seamlessly with my paint. I often go over sections with Neutral White, which creates infinite variations of off-whites and can also pull marks into a beautiful blur.
My paintings begin in a chaotic way, then I begin to organize that chaos through a series of subtractions and additions. This conscious and unconscious decision-making process becomes more refined as the painting develops. Shapes come and go, make friends, and enemies, and form relationships.
I would define my intuition as an intimate knowledge about the behavior of my materials combined with the willingness to respond to the unexpected as the painting unfolds. A kind of deep listening, deep looking, that allows the painting to be an equal participant in its own making.
What are you currently working on in the studio? How has your work evolved over the years?
Recently I’ve been challenging myself with some horizontal orientations. I prefer working on a square format, but I’ve had some requests, so I’m exploring the idea of elongating my compositions, without having them become overtly abstract landscapes.
This is sometimes successful and other times not. I’m not totally opposed to the suggestion or simplification of the horizon line; I find it satisfying in one way, but too predictable in another. It’s a fine balance that I am very aware of.
My work is always evolving. My interests shift compositionally, spatially, and with color and form as well. I may evolve a shape that seems to turn up again and again, and then it naturally morphs into something else, and I pick it up from there. I have a kind of studio mantra about infinity.
I’m motivated by the thought of infinite possibilities. The idea that there are endless paintings and other possible ways to express myself through forms, with drawings or even sculptural objects, keeps me open minded in the studio.
As painters, we often move through prolonged periods where things are not working. Can you speak to the role of frustration or feeling lost as an artist? How have you come to navigate this experience?
My motto has always been to show up in the studio no matter what. I find that if I am in proximity to my materials and my work, something will pull me into the process, no matter my mood or the trajectory of the day. I include sweeping the floor, organizing, staring into space, napping, taking notes, or painting, all part of making the work.
Painting abstractly, I often feel lost. There is no roadmap, but over time, I’ve become more accustomed to this feeling. It no longer throws me off. I more easily ride the ups and downs of the creative process these days. I can step outside of myself and recognize the insecurity, and the doubting self, as part of the ritual. Procrastination is a necessary part of preparation, mentally and spiritually. I know I am entering into the unknown, and I must get up my gumption over and over again.
What is a typical studio day like for you? What keeps you motivated?
I get into my studio early afternoon and ideally work for around 4-6 hours. I actually rev up in the evening and can work into the night if my schedule allows. The first thing I do when I arrive is to write down my household to-do list on my old clip board. That clears my mind for the day. Paintings will be in various stages of development. Sometimes I spend the afternoon mixing a palette and making decisions on what to work on next. Other times I’m in the middle of a piece and I can jump right in.
How long have you been teaching for? Tell us about your classes at Woodstock. What can students expect to gain as a result?
I’ve been teaching for about 15 years, which is a great joy. There is such a symbiosis with the artists in my classes. I learn as much from them as they do from me. My weekly class at Woodstock School of Art - Abstraction, Color and Composition - starts up again Tuesday mornings beginning May 28th. Workshops are TBA.
The class is an overview of abstract foundations with an emphasis on learning to see. When I first started teaching, I began to recognize what the most common challenges were for students who wanted to paint abstractly. Some artists wanted to add just an element of abstraction into their work, some wanted to create completely non-objective work, and others just wanted to stretch the boundaries of their work. But everyone needed to learn or re-learn the foundations: to play, and incorporate shape making, mark making, color, value and compositional cues into their paintings.
Over time I designed specific lessons that help students’ problem solve and evolve their work in their own language. We draw, collage, mix a harmonious palette, learn different approaches to begin a painting, and focus on developing a critical eye for composition.
I think we all have an innate visual language that can be explored and developed. The lessons presented are lively and expansive. Artists of all levels can bring their sensibilities to the exercises and to the group think tank. There are always a-ha moments.
You gave an excellent virtual talk recently on shapes. If you had to summarize your thoughts on finding shapes in one or two sentences, what would you focus on?
When you spend a lot of time painting, you begin to see shapes everywhere. Your vision changes and you acquire a “painting brain” - the eye that sees. I would focus on flexibility, establishing a mindset for asking questions when you’re painting.
Simply beginning with “what if?” creates opportunity, and more interesting shapes are conjured. “What if I cut the shape in half?” “What if I made that shape twice as big?” “What if I white out the whole top of this painting?” And then do that.
To learn more about Jenny’s workshops and see additional images of her work, visit jennynelson.com.