Contemporary Art by Jenny Gray
I often abstract known subjects such as architecture, landscapes, machinery and graphic images — exploring ideas and emotions with paint rather than rendering specific subjects. I often start with a sketch of something but the painting often becomes about paint, freedom, line, composition and layers. Layers are very important to my work, I often paint or draw things I know will get covered later, I like the tension of knowing something is underneath but you can’t know it fully. The viewer brings their own story to a painting.

When working on a piece I am always changing it — putting on paint, taking off paint, I have to keep giving myself challenges and problems to solve. The problems can be a strange color or a composition that does not seems to work at first, then I work and re-work. I am fascinated with composition, line and color because they can express so much while being dynamic, I am always refining, changing and creating as I work my way through a piece.

I am influenced by a wide range of subjects; architecture, the northwest landscape, old barns, old signs, typography, the desert, printed ephemera and vintage textiles. I have been a graphic designer for over 20 years, painting seriously since1998, some of my work presents a convergence of painting and graphic art. The principles of design are important to my work and typography is irresistible, but painting is truth, humanity, and most of all freedom.

SELECTED EXHIBITS

Coos Art Museum Biennial
Juried Show The Art of Oregon, October 2006, Coos Bay, Oregon

Landscapes Group Show
September 2006, Broadley Vineyards, Monroe, Oregon

Solo Exhibition “Distillation”
June 2006, Opus6ix, Eugene, Oregon

Solo Exhibition “Print to Paint, Paint to Print” December 2008, Opus6ix, Eugene, Oregon

Oregon Group Show
May 2009, Broadley Vineyards, Monroe, Oregon

Solo Exhibition “New Work”
June 2010, Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon

Around Oregon Juried Show
September 2010, Corvallis Art Center, Corvallis Oregon

“Revealed” Group Juried Show with two other artists, May 2011, Jacobs Gallery, Eugene, Oregon