Jeanne Staples
Jeanne Staples' Paintings
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| Autumn Field Medium: oil on panel Size: 8" x 10" |
Autumn Light Medium: oil on canvas Size: 16" x 48" |
Autumn on the Salt Flats Medium: oil on panel Size: 7" x 11" |
Farm Neck Medium: oil on canvas Size: 16" x 24" |
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| Felix Neck Entrance Study Medium: oil on panel Size: 11" x 14" |
Light Snow Medium: oil on panel Size: 7" x 11" |
House with Blue Shutters Medium: oil on canvas Size: 28" x 40" |
Path Along the Coast Medium: oil on board Size: 11" x 14" |
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| Gift Shop Medium: oil on panel Size: 16" x 20" |
Dry Dock Medium: oil on panel Size: 16" x 20" |
Cows on the Salt Flats Medium: oil on panel Size: 16" x 20" |
Two Cows Medium: oil on canvas Size: 10" x 10" |
Artist's Statement
As an artist, I've always been drawn to the rough, dramatic shorelines and vernacular architecture of my native New England. People who are raised here tend to be rather straightforward and unsentimental. This is how I feel about my subject matter. I try to evoke visual and emotional memories of places without romanticizing them. At the same time, I like to elicit an unexpected response from the viewer, who is often invited to observe the scene from the rear of a building or from a neighbor's yard. I think there's a little guilty pleasure in trespassing on the private side of places.
During the summer I often travel, frequently working in France and Nova Scotia in order to explore my personal heritage trail. I seldom include people in my work. I'm much more interested in revealing something that transcends time and conjures up an essential quality in the subject matter. I also try to imply rather than show something about the people who might inhabit a place by evoking an atmosphere, or nudging the viewer's curiosity. The influences of Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield are fairly obvious in my work, but I have also been inspired by artists such as Joan Mitchell, Richard Estes, and even some of the color field painters like Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko. The timelessness and mystery of scene, place and structure are what continue to interest and challenge me in my work.