Jenny Kastner
Jenny Kastner
Artist/Painter
Illustrations capturing the spirit of home through the landscapes that represent that to her, Jenny Kastner’s paintings are rich with nostalgia. It’s as if Jenny found a way to paint the wind, or of least our memory of it. Her color choices evoke a feeling of familiarity as you gaze upon her interpretation of “home”.
Below gives us a look into her creative process—
Photo Credit: Hugh Whitaker
In Jenny’s Words:
“I paint the place I live, the Kawarthas, a dynamic physical meeting place in Ontario where the granite rock of the Canadian Shield meets the limestone of the Lowlands. I love this place, and I think my paintings are an expression of that love and respect I have for this land. Gestural and graphic in nature, my work is centered around communicating a particular experience of place and sharing a sense of movement and energy found in the physical environment. I animate my subject matter in an attempt to play up the vibrance of the landscape as I see it.”
“The landscapes of the Kawathas suggests endless compositions and expressions of mood and movement that inspire me everyday, and it is out in the environment I begin to construct paintings in my head. On my paddleboard, kayak, out wakeskating or on a hike—it is through these soulful experiences I take with me a memory of particular light and colour, a reflective quality of the lake, or the movement and buzz of a white pine stand full of cicadas. By combining these collected experiences with my own photographs and sketches I come up with my compositions and conceptual expressions of place. From there, my paintings become reactions and expressions of those moments in time.”
“To share this with people and have them access part of that experience is the most rewarding part of my work. It is amazing to me how far these expressions of place have travelled; my work can now be found across Canada, and the US, as well as France, the UK, South Africa, and Australia. I currently paint from my Boathouse Studio on Stoney Lake in Ontario, with my three-year-old son, Finn, at my side always. We take breaks to go for swims on hot days, watch thunderstorms roll in from the second story deck or cuddle up to read a book in hopes of getting him to sleep in the afternoons so I can dedicate a few undivided hours to a piece I am working on. It is a beautiful life.”
Photo (C) 2015 Jenny Kastner
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