A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY and Artist Statement

 Jean LeGassick was born in California in 1950 and lived there for her first 47 years. She graduated from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, in 1979 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. Her artist affiliations include the Plein-Air Painters of America and the California Art Club.

Jean was recently honored by being chosen as one of six artists filmed for the PBS series, "Plein-Air: Painting the American Landscape" which is currently being shown on public television stations across the nation (see the PBS Series page on this web site for more information).

She has participated in many fine invitational art shows throughout the country, including several museum shows. Click on "Exhibitions" on the Artwork page to view current work in the most recent exhibitions.

Her work can be found in many public and private collections, including the permanent collection of the Nevada Museum of Art. Jean has been a featured artist in PleinAir Magazine (Dec. `04), as well as having her work published in many other national magazines in the past decade.

An art instructor at Cerro Coso Community College in Bishop, California for many years, she continues to teach an occasional oil painting workshop (see Workshops page on this web site). The current summer 2008 issue of American Artist's Workshop Magazine features Jean while she taught a recent Art in the Aspens Workshop in Pueblo, Colorado.Jean now lives in Silver City, a small, historic mining town in northern Nevada. Please feel free to contact her via the Contact page of this web site.



ARTIST STATEMENT



"Although I consider myself a versatile artist, enjoying a wide variety of subjects from portraits to cityscapes, my passion is for pure nature-- in the raw and the wilder the better. I’m happiest when I’ve taken some effort to get to the place I’m painting. There is nothing more exciting for me than to hike, snowshoe, or mulepack to remote peaks, hidden canyons, windswept desert outcroppings or the rocky shores where land meets sea.

It’s not just because I’m off the beaten path. That’s part of it, but by spending a few hours hiking through a landscape I’ve experienced that landscape in a way that I wouldn’t have if I’d pulled up in my truck and painted it from the side of the road. I know that place much more intimately. I’m connected to it on a deeper emotional level, and my best work is about that connection, namely having captured in the piece some truth about a particular place at a particular time.

How do I capture this truth? That’s why I paint “en plein air”. A photograph doesn’t tell me what the breeze felt like on my skin, how it rippled the grass and sounded in the trees, or what the scents were that belonged to that day and place, or how the clouds tumbled and turned, or what the air temperature was. And it certainly doesn’t tell me how I felt after I hiked for miles over rough terrain to get there-- how alive I felt at that particular time! All these elements somehow get mixed up with the paint and applied to the canvas.

My goal while doing 'en plein-air' work is to record my immediate and spontaneous response to the scene. I want someone to see and feel what I felt at that particular time; to convey to others my experience and love for a place. If I come even close to this goal, I feel I have accomplished something of worth."



Jean LeGassick