JEANNE JEPSEN
Jeanne Jepsen - a journey though life
Statment
Art has accompanied mankind since his very origins. The cave walls discovered in different archaeological sites around the world testify even today to the inscription of man's dreams and primary concern.
My work grows from the duel between the beginning and the end.
individual and the shared awareness of the group.
In the beginner there is the wast nothingness, then came the single figures without any freedom, houses without any opening or any relation to the outside world. Then, tiny shapes begin to appear. And a relationship between the shapes emerge. The shapes of this phase are turned in on themselves, but they try to be together even though they may not succeed in reaching each other.
Gradually the relations between the figures Become freer and more subtle, and now I see my works as groups of objects relating to each other.
For me, Painting is a moving balance between controlling the painting and allowing it to lead the way. The magic is in finding a way to let go and just embracing the process.
Then the painting comes alive!
BIO
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Born in Copenhagen, Jeanne has been painting professionally for over two decades. She began her career as a Acupuncture. During her Acupuncture career, Jeanne continued to paint, studying objective and figurative realism as any good artist should, but loud, non-objective modes continued to call out to her.
It was intuitive, emotive conditions and the essence of time that she needed to express in a physical form. To do this, she allowed “rules” to set the foundation onto which explosions of feeling – her visual vocabulary – would be held together. Working in a thematic series format, each painting demonstrates the next chapter, and each series informs the next. Her early compositions show explorations of classic abstract color theory and rich brushwork with open areas of overlapping pigment.
Later works, those in the Munk Series, 2012, are a fusion of geometry and expressive tonal movement that fade in and away within layered space. and have a meditative minimalism or Asian aesthetic with controlled, modern, hard, angular forms next to simple line gesture writing motifs, all within open flat areas. This conveys a rather intellectual and conceptual or heavy sensibility, despite the lightness and minimal visual characteristics of the paintings.
Her new work features buildings, those precisely constructed utilitarian objects that are the quintessential symbols of Life and confinement; they are beautiful and tragic objects because we depend on them yet sometimes hate them. They are metaphors for the core nature of our lives. “The human condition includes illness and decline,” she writes. “We know it and yet, from a personal perspective, it feels like a ‘tragidi’ when things hit home.”
Jeanne utilizes these objects as subject and as painting tools, extensions of her hand, dipping the bruch into paint and applying it onto the canvas, a form to create a vocabulary in which the final shapes are graceful and colorfull. The houses are layered with oil paint in bold strong colors, like black and deep blues, next to muted soft pretty tones like peach and white; touches of aggressive red add punctuation marks and attract attention as symbolic material. Paint is manipulated with fat brushes and scrapers and moved around with a squeegee tool. The material is left embedded, while its other areas allowed to be exposed, as directed by the composition.
Jeanne’s last major solo exhibition took place in 2015, in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the Galerie Rentemestervej. When she arrived in the United States, she admits to having gone into a type of hibernation for many years while developing her paintings and testing concepts privately. Friends encouraged her to explore the exhibition world, and soon she began showing in Clarksville. In 2017, a large solo exhibition “From her to now”, took place at the Lake gallery, VA.
