JILL FINSEN

JILL FINSEN | INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Q. How did your passion for art begin taking shape for you—at home, school, a mentor, and other artists who inspired you or a personal experience that started the fermenting process?

A. I began making art as a photographer, using both large and medium format cameras. Immersive learning was critical to advancing not only my skills but also my daily practice and personal vision. In addition to ongoing classes, one-week and two-week workshops introduced me to new materials, such as platinum printing, as well as new ways of seeing my subjects and my relationship to them. Of particular note, a Notan workshop taught by the painter Dorr Bothwell deepened my understanding of light and dark and relationships of objects to each other. In all, they fostered a new insight into my creative process and a renewed engagement with it and the world. The results were evident in my work: my output increased dramatically because of renewed interest, compositions became more refined and prints had greater light and clarity. Perhaps most significantly, the workshops deepened my work’s relationship to the rich history of the medium and my participation in it.

I turned my attention to drawing and painting around 2000 and appreciated the directness of the format. I had a long and satisfying career in the non-profit world and retired from that to pursue my passion for painting.

Q. How would you describe your artwork, in terms of materials or mediums? Has it changed or evolved since formal training and what are your goals for it?

A. I am primarily an oil painter whose subjects cross the line between abstraction and representation, sitting firmly in neither category. My work has evolved over time and especially during my time at The New York Studio School. Perhaps it has become more fluid, suggestive and less specific. Although I earned my MFA in May 2018, I have chosen to stay at the school for another year to have access to the remarkable faculty and resources the school provides. I am interested in continuing to grow in my work. Having additional tools and exposure has not necessarily made the process easier. But it has made me hungrier to pursue the art.

Q. How important is a personal style to you as an artist or does your work reflect larger social and cultural issues?

A. My personal style is expressed through paintings that depict the interplay of familiarity and the imagined. At times awkward and quirky, they celebrate emotional responses to the people, objects, and places I portray. Rather than realistic hues and forms, I use bold color, flattened planes and varying paint texture to invite the viewer in through emotion rather than by offering a map of specifics.

It is unimportant whether the viewer knows that a particular painting depicts a cove in Maine, a beach on Cape Cod, or a specific home or friend. My intent is to suggest that the viewer might share in the joy of that space or engage with the subject of my portraits.
Painting from observation or memory, I create exaggerated objects and leave anchoring details unresolved within an imagined space. Viewers can roam the image for themselves, entering where they will and leaving with an experience that is both aesthetic and affecting.

Q. Has being a woman affected your work and others’ perception of it?

Dorr Bothwell was well into her 90s when I had the privilege to work with her. I was granted my MFA on my 71st birthday. I think that more attention has been paid to my age rather than my gender. Others have been impressed that I chose to put myself through a full-time intellectually, emotionally and physically challenging program at this point in my life.

Q. How do you feel about being part of a woman’s art organization?

I am honored to have been nominated to be part of NAWA. Understanding that women are too often under recognized for art works compared to men, I value the existence of the organization. NYSS’s 2018 juried alumni exhibition was an invitational to female-identifying alumni to submit works as women are significantly under represented. I am pleased to have work accepted in this competition as well.