Jenny Shaw
Exhibition: Untethered Boat
Jenny Shaw is a Los Angeles-based artist from Taipei, Taiwan. She has spent four decades in the sunshine state, where the mild weather and melting-pot of cultures and ethnicities have brought out the positivity, cheer, and playfulness that are reflected consistently in her paintings.
Jenny began drawing and painting with watercolors and traditional Chinese inks since she was a young child. She obtained her western art education at Chaffy College after moving to California in 1983. Her first solo show was held at the American Club International in Taipei in 2002. In addition to art and painting, Jenny is immensely passionate about literature, philosophy, music, dance, travel, and nature. These passions are what drove her to delve deeper in her psychology and emotions, and to later translate these findings into non-objective, abstract, mixed-media paintings.
While working primarily in acrylics, watercolor, and gouache, Jenny also utilizes a variety of tools to build layers and textures on the surface of the canvas. By means of gradually reducing and eliminating these layers and textures, Jenny arrives at and preserves the “essence” of the painting, a process which evokes the metaphor of memory. In developing her voice, Jenny analyzed in great detail the colors used by many of the greats — Bonnard, Matisse, Diebenkorn, George Inness, Tom Thomson, and Wolf Kahn; their influences echo her joyful personality, helping her arrive at her unique style of warm, bright and blissful colors. Through her work, Jenny hopes to bring a sense of joy to her viewers and to give console to those who need it.
