This is my workspace
My compositions are often a simple design that capture a ‘sense of place’. I carry my own native landscape from the west of Ireland inside my heart and merge it with the landscapes I have found beauty and connection with within Australia.
I often connect half remembered landscapes and thoughts together in my studio. There are periods of simplicity in my art, where less detail serves its own purpose.
After completing a degree in fine art in Dublin with a major in sculptural ceramics, I was soon drawn to the sculptural qualities of oil paints, oil is my main medium with which I paint, it's also not surprising that the many years of working with clay led me to painting the land and the feelings from it.
After moving to Melbourne from a small town in the west of Ireland in 2011 with 3 small children, I had a very deep need to connect to the land that we would be calling home.
I was so excited to be in this wonderful new place of opportunity, but at the same time I felt the loss of leaving my birth place, not only the people but the actual land.
This brought me on a journey in finding my own belonging, one of becoming grounded from the ground beneath me. Using memory, imagination and the sense of this new place I started making visual my emotional responses to time and space.
This is how my style of artwork was conceived.
Professional Artist Statement (for Press)
Jenny Jessop is an Irish artist, living and working in bayside Melbourne, Australia. Originally from the west of Ireland, Jenny moved to Melbourne in 2011 with her Australian husband and three children. Jenny completed a degree in Fine Art, with a major in Sculptural Ceramics. When not painting in her studio, you’ll find her out on the water, spending time with her kids outdoors, or enjoying good times with friends and family.
Jenny was drawn to paint with oils through a fascination with the sculptural qualities of oil paints. Her work is deeply influenced by her experience of ‘place’ and is born of her deep connection to the wild landscapes in the west of Ireland, and to the equally rugged landscapes of Australia.
Through painting abstract landscapes Jenny explores themes such as connection to place, distance and memory. Her paintings are a combination of the internal and external self, possessing an ethereal quality that has the power to evoke a story, a memory or a feeling that belongs only to the viewer.
Patrick Kavanagh’s quote ‘On the stem of memory, imaginations blossom’ captures this experience perfectly. Jenny’s work is about capturing a memory or a feeling that is already there; the viewer expands on this, making the piece what it will become to them.
Jenny says, “When someone is looking at my paintings, I want them to find a place…to use their own imagination. I paint places that don't exist, but I’ve found somewhere for me, and I’d like the viewer to find somewhere for them.”
About Jenny’s Process
When starting a painting, Jenny never draws on the canvas so not to limit what the work will become. There is usually a number of layers underneath the finished piece, which is an important part of her painting process. In a physical sense these layers add depth to the work, but they are also a reflection of the layers within the artist, and what they bring to the piece, emotionally.
It is only when the painting is complete that Jenny can interpret the artworks description, either internal or external, emotional or cultural. Often the narrative that plays out in a painting can reflect current news and cultural events i.e. a storm passing reflects a major event that has been covered in the news or a cultural unrest or change that affects our collective consciousness.
I paint landscapes, predominantly places I have not been, but I believe they stem from the memories of others. Important moments and places are never forgotten, I capture them for those who need to revisit them or escape to, stare at and go on a journey too somewhere, only they see.
