Giving Life to the Community
Stephanie Jucker:
Born and raised near London, I received an MFA from Syracuse University in New York, and then spent five years painting and exhibiting in England. After returning to the States in 1991, I settled in Marin, an area of great natural beauty, which has remained a source of inspiration throughout the years. After joining the community of artists at Artworks Downtown in 1998, I began to focus on painting natural forms from my environment and gradually developed an encaustic technique incorporating sand and other found objects collected on hikes in the area. As my work evolves my current focus is on the emotional life of women and its echoes and parallels in the natural world.
Most pieces start with an image in my mind's eye, inspired by something I've seen or experienced. The image has some metaphoric quality not yet fully formed and the act of painting helps me realize it.
I usually start by drawing directly with color onto the canvas and build a richly textured surface using encaustic and sand. The layering and scraping of oil paint, wax and sand are part of the trial and error involved in searching for the picture. Personal symbols and expressions of experiences are often woven into the imagery imbuing my paintings with an allegorical quality. Sometimes hints of European myths and fairy tales seep into the picture plane, suggesting links to be found between universal themes and one's own personal experience.
