JillLetourneauArt

Spreading the Joy of Painting

I have been an artist since childhood, painting and drawing as often as I could. I asked for my first oil paint set for Christmas at 10 years old. Since then, I have explored numerous mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, monoprints, ink, charcoal, encaustics, and mixed media. I minored in art in college and later studied drawing, pastel, monoprints, and painting with various professional artists in New Hampshire, and at the Guild Studio School in Northampton, Massachusetts. My style is constantly evolving, through experimentation with color and texture. I enjoy surrealism, whimsical expressive painting, impressionism, and intuitive abstracts. My style has been described as "Fairy Naturalist", springing from my love of creating alternative worlds that magically incorporate the natural world but are unbound by the usual laws of physics.

I exhibited my work since the 1990's in numerous juried art shows including at the Bank of Boston, Springfield Art Museum, Hampshire College, and the Arts Council of Franklin County (MA); Providence Art Club, Warwick Art Museum, Barrington Art Gallery, and Bristol Art Gallery (RI); Sharon Arts Center (NH); at galleries in Providence and Westerly, RI; and most recently at Wickford Art Association, Norwich Arts Center, and Westerly Cooperative Gallery. I am now showing and selling my work again after retiring from my busy 40+ year career as a grant writer, and I am delighted that now I finally have the time to pursue my true love of painting full-time.

I have always loved using bold colors that express my feelings. I enjoy the thick texture of the new acrylics and love to experiment by building and sculpting thick paint layers that erupt from the surface. I also like to play with flow acrylics and enjoy developing my own techniques using various amounts of water, silicone, glitter, and more. I also enjoy using a variety of tools besides brushes to create shapes and interesting marks. I have used dowels, bottle caps, plastic, foil, yarn, string, sponges, pieces of wood, stones, and other objects to play with the paint and create new textures and color swirls for my creations.

At this stage in my life as an artist, rather than having an idea in mind, I often select my colors and then "jump into the vortex" and begin painting to see what is revealed to me to develop further. The brush, knife, paints and colors seem to be guided by spirit, resulting in my imaginative "Alternative World Series". Unbounded by rules, this form of painting enables me to be completely free to play with color and texture in a way that connects with my inner being. I just love painting... always have and always will.

I hope you enjoy my work, too.