It Simply Spills Over
Oil on Panel
18 x 24
in
When Vermont landscape painter Julia Jensen was asked about the women from art history that have made an impact on her practice, she revealed her interest in Hilma af Klint and a number of previously overlooked early 20th century women artists like Emma Kunz and Georgina Houghton. Jensen discovered that these artists saw their art as messages from an unseen source. They were dismissed by their peers, but what they were bringing forth was completely original responses to internal worlds. It made sense to Jensen that women were the source for this kind of work and that it would happen outside of any kind of movement or officially sanctioned group. She feels that because these artists were ignored, “they were completely free to follow their instinct and able to be honest”. . Similarly, Julia Jensen finds that a deep connection to herself, and perhaps even something beyond herself, is what she is trying to explore in her art. However, she doesn’t intend it to be a solitary exercise, she aims to connect with others through her painting. With this in mind, Jensen continues to include references to the external world to give others a path into her work. Using landscape as jumping off point also gives her a handrail into the process. She states “I have tried to paint completely non-objectively and just find that I am at a loss, the process becomes arbitrary. I need to have some kind of structure, and for the time being landscape is what is serving me.”