Interview
Jenna Knowles
Jenna is a 20-year-old New Zealander painter. Although born in Brisbane, Australia, she’s lived most of her life in New Zealand, where painting and creating art has become part of her life.
Jenna creates works in both traditional acrylic and digitally. Since 2018, she’s been growing her skills in acrylic painting, particularly the dry brush technique. In recent times, Jenna has began focusing on digital art as well. She is a self-taught artist who discovered her passion for art in high school.
Jenna’s dedication and hard work have helped her find her own unique technique and achieve top painting student status, culminating in a highly marked painting scholarship in her final year.
Jenna is planning on going back to university soon, in order to expand her interest in 3D elements for games.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I was born in Australia, but when I was 3, my family moved back to New Zealand, where I've been surrounded by nature and beautiful landscapes. Most of my childhood was spent drawing and doodling whatever and whenever. It was fun, but it never occurred to me until I started high school that this is something I really love and enjoy. Through having a class where I was allowed to create freely and explore new ideas, I quickly grasped my new strong love for art and painting, which was surprising because no one else in my family is an artist. I immediately found my favorite painting technique—dry brush.
The ability to blend, create depth, contrast, and layer color was key for me. Being exposed to painting felt incredible since I’d never had that opportunity before. I improved very quickly, and my passion for painting started forming. Being able to find something that felt just right for me and who I am was really comforting. It helped me focus and de-cluttered my mind. After high school, I spent a year in university where I developed a strong interest in 3D aspects of game making, but circumstances in life made it hard for me to continue.”
What inspires you most?
“I’m inspired by the scenery around me. New Zealand is filled with such incredible landscapes. I’m always surrounded by nature, beautiful mountains, or small lakes and creeks I can walk or hike to. I’ve always analyzed the colors, tones, shapes and lighting within nature. Everything around me interests me visually, even something as simple as an item on my desk. I’ll just look at it, noticing texture or how the light from the sun casts shadows on creases or on my desk.
I also like to look at portrait photography, which is another source of inspiration for me. I feel it’s very important to see so many unique faces and their features, and how lighting can interact with them.”
“Portraits on their own are a blank canvas. As someone who wears makeup, I like to add a new layer of depth or creativity with the colors the person would be wearing from eye shadow, blush or lipstick. This pairs especially well with brush painting. I feel this also could add more of a surrealist element within my art. ”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I relate my art pieces to myself, and they represent how I am doing in that part of my life. This can be anything to do with personal growth, happiness, uncertainty, depression, and many other aspects. Although I don’t paint self portraits, there are a few pieces of the person I paint that influence me, from how I might do my makeup or certain piercings I have. I combine this with nature-inspired elements that hold common or personal symbolism to express the emotions I’m feeling at the time. My paintings are always a reflection on myself; how was I doing years ago versus now, and what ups and downs I have overcome. These leave underlying messages in my work that I have a strong connection to, and may relate to many others who also experience highs and lows.
In recent years, I’ve started creating digital art which is strongly influenced by my traditional painting. It is good for practice as it takes much less time, although it’s not quite the same. But I enjoy it as another medium to explore other things, such as character designs and the like.”
How would you describe your work?
“Someone once described my work to me as something similar to a dream. This absolutely made sense to me. As art represents my state of mind, it could appear like a dream state with how I enjoy surrealism, as proportion, scale and other textures are combined into my pieces. This style and technique influence my digital art, and I'm aiming to incorporate more realism details into my work.”
Which artists influence you most?
“In my art classes, I never got taught anything I hadn’t already worked on and wanted to strive and achieve on my own. When working on my scholarship and portfolios, I was exposed to artists that have influenced my work and style, like James Jean, kelogsloops, Mihi Hirano, Kris Lewis and Claude Monet.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process starts with myself in how life has made me feel at this moment, and how I want to represent it. In order to keep myself in check, I have to be completely aware if I’ve slipped back into old bad habits or if I’ve felt inspired and changed. There really is no need for me to think about this for long. I know if I haven’t felt like getting out of bed or eating or functioning I need to overcome this bump again before I slip further and further down. In other moments I sit there knowing I’ve been productive, creative and happier and in mindsets.
Like these examples, I use my paintings to reflect and try to understand what set me off to feel depressed or hopeless some days and what I can install in my life to minimize the effects and deal with my mental health struggles. Then I begin to relate and express these things with nature. I use to take a train to Wellington for a while, and it took us in and out of the countryside and hills. No matter what was going on, or how tired I was, I always found myself looking at all the beautiful landscape and foliage going by. Other scenes as well, such as beautiful sunrises to sunsets each day or the ocean surrounding us here and the islands around us. Being in such a beautiful natural country has always appealed to me with beauty and symbolism.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“In recent years, people have become more open to sharing their struggles, particularly mental health related issues, and art is one way to express themselves. Art allows people to relate to other’s struggles, which can be massively comforting for someone who doesn’t know what to do with theirs. Another role of art is to highlight strong political issues. Sometimes, visual paintings of unacceptable treatment of people—racism, homophobia or many others—can encourage people to protest for their rights. And other times, art can be nothing more than just visually appealing to others. Sometimes, that’s all that people want.
An artist’s work will always be maturing and changing as artists are human. Most importantly, art evolves with our passion and drive.”
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