Jayne Holsinger is a New York-based artist known for her painted compositions characterized by their Midwest American content. Her work explores landscape and memory both spatial and personal. Painting series include Women Drivers, American Stills, Mennonites, and National Parks.
She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards among them the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (two grants), the New York Foundation for the Arts (two grants), the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.
Public and private collections include Montclair State University, New Jersey, The Pensacola Museum of Art, Florida, Serge Bloch, and Christopher Burge.
Amongst national and international exhibitions her work has been shown at the Shedhalle, Zurich, the Allied Museum, Berlin, the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, Margaret Thatcher Projects, New York, the Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, and the Butler Institute, Youngstown.
Ms. Holsinger has had fellowships from the Bronx Museum of the Arts Artist in the Marketplace Program, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Her work has been reviewed and reproduced in the New York Times, Flash Art online (Milan), Harper’s Magazine, and Forbes.
In 2007, the artist received her MFA from the Transart Institute in Linz, Austria. She studied painting 3 years at the New York Studio School in the early 80’s. Her BFA is from Ringling College of Art & Design, Sarasota, Florida.
Artist’s Statement
Born in rural Indiana, I take inspiration from my Midwest American roots, the natural environment, and by exploring the elements of photography in painting. The paintings in this particular series span 7 years and reference snapshots of National Parks, including an artist residency I did this past summer in Australia.
The artist residency, BigCi, where I stayed for 4 weeks, is located on the edge of the Wollemi National Park an hour and half west of Sydney. Exposed to an entirely different continent, I was amazed at the strangeness of the landscape. It features burnt out trees (from bush fires), exotic birds, outcroppings of pagoda rocks, and numerous Eucalyptus trees. I painted with gouache (an opaque watercolor) on site from images gathered while bushwalking with fellow residents led by BigCi director Yuri Bolotin. I was working like a discoverer off a boat in the 1770’s seeing and documenting things for the first time.
Gouache has been my main medium since 2010. As I work, I allow for the material process of paint itself to transform the image. Ultimately, these painted moments extend to their images a felt experience: one of empathy and awe for the environment, a spirit of exploration, and a passion for color and light.
Panhandler Magazine 