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Courses led by Mark Cazalet and John T Freeman at West Dean College in 2007 and 2008 have influenced me, as well as the work of many other artists. I am not working to present some kind of painterly front, but see myself involved in a process of discovery with paint which is an integral part of my personality. On this page are some examples of painting from 2007, when I first started working with paint, up until 2009. For work 2010 onwards see Painting 2010
"Enchanted" version 1 Acrylic on grey cardboard Jenny Meehan 2007 Outside frame size 47x57cm A glade in the middle of a forest takes on a magical quality, and offers, in a very physical way, a place of contemplation. Places of refuge and of transformation have emerged as quite a distinctive strand in my work over the last few years.
While the paintings below are very diverse in style, exploring the process of painting is my main preoccupation, so I am committed to doing that rather than producing a body of work which looks cohesive.
"St Peter" ©jenny meehan 2007 Most of the painting I see in Chessington is on garage doors, in the driveways behind houses. I have spent a great deal of time looking at different painted surfaces and seeing the colours changing depending on the weather. I like the often "slap dash" strokes of areas which the person painting did not consider worth being careful about. Seeing this kind of non-representational painting in my local environment has been a great motivation for me starting to paint.
"Pot In The Garden" (detail) 2007 Acrylic on paper Vessels, pots and containers became more of a focus for me over 2009 and 2010. I embraced this wholeheartedly by devoting time to working with clay and making hand-built and thrown pots/sculptural objects. My work with clay has influenced later paintings considerably.
"Snail in the Garden" 2007 Acrylic on paper For sale, framed £200. Outside frame size 48x58cm. The snail in this early painting was made by Mike Savage. My own gastropods (copper and steel) appeared over the next couple of years, and the spiral as a motif has continued to feature in a lot of my two dimensional work. Experiments 2008 Onwards I'm steering away from away from a very production orientated mind set to a more contemplative one. Through my painting I seek to learn all I can, rather than produce a "finished" art work. I am not striving to produce a style, but to explore paint as a medium of communication.
"Blue Boat" Jenny Meehan Oil on block canvas 2008 It's based on an image of a Constable sketch, and my study of three printed reproductions of Ivon Hitchens landscape painting. I love Ivon Hitchens' work, and think I could learn a lot from looking at more of his painting. Poetry and painting are very similar. Music too. The rests, unfilled spaces, silences; they all speak, sometimes louder than words.
This is my favourite interpretation of a different Constable image.
2008 (A1 approximately) I can see both peace and passion in this. I spent some time on the week of the course looking at the work of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and discovered a beauty and softness that I had not previously been aware of in his paintings, so I took some of that in I hope, and learnt. Edvard Munch had a lot of pain in his life, and a lot of the prints of his paintings I looked at depicted death bed scenes. I hope in my painting there is also a sense of birth too, not just death.
I'm experimenting, that's all there is to say really. Painting is a process, and there's the beauty of it. Unlike photography, the flexibility is total, from beginning to end. From the beginning of the painting when it is conceived to the end, when it is put to rest.
"Flowers that never die" Oil on canvas Jenny Meehan 2009 The canvas is soft, and responsive. The image in a painting emerges, disappears, emerges, etc. I am enjoying this. There is a fluidity which is not there with my digital photography. There are areas of the painting which are beautiful, and then, beautifully lost. I'm experimenting. It's enjoyable to have the challenge of painting figuratively, and it's also very enjoyable to experiment with different levels of abstraction too.
Hence this version of the same subject matter. "Burst Forth" 2009 Oil on board. Outside frame size 38x48cm
"The Storyteller" 2009 Oil on board. Outside frame size 32x42cm Times of contemplation are equally important to the laying down of paint.
"For Chris at Itchenor" 2009 Oil on canvas (sold)
"Langstone - The Tide Comes In" 2009 Oil on Canvas
A video of paintings exhibited as part of my "Colour-Full-House" Exhibition can be viewed by following this link: Paintings Video Back to Homepage |
