Jeanne Chowning
Painting / drawing / mixed media (2 dimensional)
Artist Statement
Jeanne creates work on paper, including drawings, watercolors, and prints. Recently, she returned to the practice of figure drawing, which first engaged her in her youth. She loves the urgency of short poses (20 minutes or less) and the energy and focus they require. She is drawn to the spontaneity of a pose and to the tension between abstraction and figuration. Inspired by the expressive immediacy of gesture drawing and the long tradition of artists working from the human figure, she uses collage to begin a dialogue with the body on the page, and ink to commit to mark-making. She often starts by assembling shapes and textures, then responds with ink to clarify structure, amplify movement, or leave areas unresolved. She values a sense of motion on the page and aims to make work that both embodies energy and humanity. She has been a West Seattle resident since 1990.
Artist Bio
Jeanne was introduced to art at a young age by her mother, an architect. Her great-grandmother was a painter and sculptor, and her mother and sister both paint as well. Her father is a scientist, and Jeanne was interested in both art and science, pursuing studies in both and becoming credentialed to teach in both fields. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied photography, drawing, painting, and printmaking.
Her professional career has focused on science education in schools and through outreach programs at science education nonprofits. Her work has also focused on educational equity and broadening opportunities for young people. While she has always made art, in the last few years she has been compelled to spend more time creating watercolor travel sketches and landscapes, small block prints and etchings, and figure studies. In the past year, she has shown her work at Fremont Coffee Company and Graphite Arts in Edmonds.