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Interview with Jennifer Wigmore - Find out why she chose to paint Gordon Pinsent's portrait on wood.

SP: How would you describe your work to someone that has never seen it?

JW: I would say that I’m a painterly painter. That's a word that has been used a lot to describe painters who like to see the brush stroke as opposed to painters who are more like the old masters where you don't really see the brush stroke, its more realist. I have a more chunky style. I like putting colours beside each other see how they play off each other. I like to capture moments that are not typically painted. The moments that aren't posed are a real big hallmark of my style. I like negative space, so I use a lot of space on the canvas. I often put the subject off centre on the canvas to tell you a story with negative space - negative space meaning the space that isn't the subject; the subject is the person.

SP: You mentioned you like painting children. Does that have to do with the not posing or being in the moment?

JW: Yeah, animals as well. I find that children and animals don't pose for cameras, especially children of a certain age, and animals never do (laughs). I like to paint moments because I think it captures an essence of a time that maybe we have forgotten, or we all recognize on some level.

SP: You painted Gordon Pinsent’s portrait; he was sitting very still. How was it to find that essence or moments you were talking about?

JW: Typically I paint from photographs, because I do like to capture these moments that are sort of between other moments; in between posed moments. I ended up going from a series of photographs that I took later.  Painting from life is a very different thing then painting from a photograph. I have painted from life and I love painting from life, but it’s a very different process.  The hours that we had with Gordon are not enough time to be able to paint something from life fully realized. Gordon wasn't still all the time, it wasn't a typical model session - people were talking to him, he was talking. If I was to paint from life, I would need somebody to be still for six hours.

SP: How was your experience on the show?

Oh incredible, it was an incredible experience. It was an incredibly emotional experience for me too. I have a background in acting, and have known about Gordon my whole life - my father was huge fan of Gordon. Gordon Pinsent has always been in my life on some level or another, so it was quite an emotional experience for me. My father passed away and they were roughly the same age and similar sort of character with similar features. It was much more of an emotional experience than I ever anticipated it being, because of who it was.

SP: Did you contact Star Portraits?

JW: It was a combination of both. I knew that the show was asking actively last year for names, and I knew about 10 or 12 painters on the show last year so I think my name was mentioned a few times to the show. Then when I heard they were going for a second season, I thought, “you know what? I’m just going to send them an email and say that I’m really interested in the show”. I’d seen all the episodes, knew so many people who were on it, and really like the concept of it. So I sent them an email and they responded saying they already knew who I was and they'd love me to do it - I was thrilled.

SP: That's great. Can you explain the materials that you use?

JW: I love all kinds of backgrounds. I love painting on wood. I love painting on canvas. I chose to paint on wood for the Pinsent painting, just because wanted elements of wood to be showing through; nature is a very big part of Gordon's life. Whenever I'm painting somebody who has a direct connection with nature I like to use wood, and expose some of the panel just to make that extra correlation. I did a light acrylic under painting and a sealer on top of the wood, and then I painted in oil over top.

SP: Are there any certain brands of paint you prefer?

JW: Oh God no. I sort of choose everything - although I’m a big fan of Georgia, which is an oil paint. It's a very inexpensive paint, but I really like the consistency. I like more runny paints. I don't like it very thick [paint], because occasionally the brush strokes end up being so thick. It’s important that I don't have a very thick paint to start with (laughs)…

SP: You've had numerous solo and group exhibitions, how do they differ?

JW: Well when you’re solo… you're solo. The pressure is a lot higher with group shows; you’re usually only putting in a couple of pieces so its not just you. There's an expectation in solo shows that you are showing a new body of work; that you are continually exploring new avenues of your craft, and that if you are putting out a solo exhibition and people are coming expecting to see a new development in your craft, a new level a new layer. I think it’s really important for an artist to have a solo exhibition, at least every couple of years, because that pushes them to further their own ideas. I do a lot of commissions and I could easily fill up all my time doing commissions. I love doing commissions and find then extremely rewarding and very challenging; getting to know the families and the sitters is always an extraordinary experience. There's another layer to doing work that's your own and that is completely generated from you. You don't have a client to please, especially for somebody who spends quite bit of time doing commissions. It’s really important for me to have a solo exhibition every couple of years. Speaking of which - I have one coming up.

SP: You’ve had a lot of different art training. Tell about it.

JW: I've been an artist my entire life. Whether I was an actor, I was an actor for twenty years, or a painter. I've also been a teacher, an acting teacher. I think when you dedicate your life to being an artist, because of the nature of a country we live in, you have to sort of start becoming an ace of all trades if you real want to have art pay your bills. Canada’s not a terribly supportive country of the arts, compared to European countries for example. Artists are often left to fend for themselves in terms of creating culture. At a certain point, certainly as an actor - a female actor, the roles began to dry up. I needed to continue practicing art because that's all I know, and that's who I am. It was my lucky stars that painting became the thing that sort of took off for me. I think painting sort of took off really well, because of my acting training. I'd been an actor for so long. Actors are experts at observing people and I’ve spent twenty years as an actor observing human behaviour and recreating on stage or in film, even though the technique is different. Drawing as opposed to [using] my own personal body. The actual idea of the craft is very similar and it came together very quickly for me when I started painting. The idea of painting human beings has always been… I did paint abstract for a number of years while I was working on my skills to paint human beings. Painting human beings is really difficult to make them seem round and proportional. It’s a very complicated set of skills to be able to see a human being and then be able to draw a human being; it's a completely different thing. They say there's a margin of error of about seven percent that the average person will look at a painting or drawing of a person and if that painting is not at least 93% accurate the person viewing it will not believe it as a human. That's a very small margin of error (laughs) that you have to be able to represent the human form and make it believable. I needed to work on my skills for a number years painting human beings and learning how to draw skin and bone and muscle on top of skin and bone in order to be able to represent that 93%, get in that 93% - or higher.

SP: Wow, you have put a lot of work into your craft.

JW: It's a really weird thing and I think that's true of acting too. I go to a lot of theatre and I watch a considerable amount of movies and televisions, and if the performances isn't high up there in - at least 93% believability I’m not going to believe that person as a real human, as it just doesn't ring true. I think that this is actually true of a lot of art forms; if the book doesn't have a sense of - I guess books are slightly different, but you know there is a level of a book that you wouldn't believe after a certain point. Being able to recognize human beings from a visual perspective, whether your watching them on stage or whether your painting them you've got to be high up there in the percentage of real skill - to be able to accurately represent them or people are going to register them as false.

SP: Where do you see yourself and your artwork going in the future?

JW: I’d like to continue on the path that I’m going. I think that I’ve been amazed at how well things have been going, since I’ve really only been painting for 5 years. I would like to continue working on commissions as I find them extremely rewarding, meeting the families and giving them a gift that lasts for a long, long time - that isn't just a photograph. I would like to continue my solo show work where I’m exploring and trying to push the boundaries of portraiture, that's sort of where I see where I’m going. I'm not a person who needs to have a big gallery and be internationally known as a portrait painter – that’s not important to me, what’s important to me is that I make people happy with my work, and that I’m happy making it in the process.

Artist Stats

Bold strokes and negative space are the hallmarks of Jennifer Wigmore’s style. She is equally passionate about portraiture and abstraction, and has achieved great success in each genre. Tending to focus on the moments between poses, which she feels enables her to draw out her subjects’ true personality and inner beauty.

www.jenniferwigmore.com