Julia Jensen

When I first began to paint I worked directly from life. I would paint plein air and in the colder months I would work in the studio using sketches and photographs. Through this early work I developed a vocabulary of landscape. At present I am not  painting from life as much as I did earlier in my career. Now I work from memories and impressions.

As I paint I try to keep the surface open for as long as I can. I begin with brush stokes and color, turning the panel this way and that, allowing the painting to emerge. While I am referencing the physical world I am no longer trying to faithfully represent a specific time and place. I am more interested in evoking memory and impression.

These days I am guided by a more internal path which is expressed perfectly by this statement from George Inness: “The definition of art is to represent objects, not for themselves but in order to embody the echo they have placed on our soul.”