Artist profile

Jen Sievers says her art is pretty much the contents of her soul.

Jen Sievers.

For Auckland’s Jen Sievers, creating colours and applying them to a surface to see what will emerge is the embodiment of happiness. She describes the act of painting as a soulful expression of pure joy, one that lets her lose herself in her colours for hours at a time.

So, Jen, tell us about the pivotal moment when you really engaged with painting…

It came about five years ago, just after I’d moved up into the Waitakeres with my husband Jorin and our daughter Mila. I hadn’t really painted much since dropping out of art school in 1998 and had been working as a graphic designer for 15 years. Mila was two at the time, and one spring day, after spending a lovely morning with friends, I took her home for a nap. As she went to sleep, I had an overwhelming urge to paint. I found a piece of ply, some house paint and a few craft paints, and started swishing paint around in the sunshine. Even talking about it makes me feel quite emotional — I felt like I came alive.

You weathered a health scare in 2019 — how did it affect your passion for your practice?

My breast cancer diagnosis was a big shock, and for a while it felt like my future might be slipping away from me. It’s crazy how life works, though, because at the time I was in the thick of painting for a solo show, one depicting goddesses, so my painting not only provided a place to feel joy and be present in the moment, but also allowed me to reflect on some of the world’s strongest female archetypes right when I needed it. I was very fortunate that my cancer was treatable and, in the end, one of my life’s greatest blessings.

Was this what led you to become a full-time artist?

There’s nothing like a cancer diagnosis to give you a good wake-up call — the whole ‘life is short’ thing becomes very real. I’d been mulling over the idea of going full-time for ages and had made deals with myself like: ‘If you make the same amount of money from your art as your day job for a year, then you can quit the job’ — but I’d reach these goals, freak out and hold onto my job, just in case.

It didn’t help that I actually loved my role and was working with a wonderful team of people, but I was exhausted. I was working three-and-a-half days a week, doing the school runs, and running my art business in the evenings, on Fridays and in the weekends. >

Iknew I wouldn’t be able to continue that level of work with radiotherapy coming up, and I absolutely couldn’t quit painting, so I had to let go of my job. That was in February 2020, and it was the best decision I ever made. I think if I hadn’t had cancer, I might still be worried about quitting, so I have it to thank for this magical life I’m now living.

Can you talk us through your creative process?

At the moment, most of my pieces are landscapes, and this process is always a play between freedom and control, intuition and planning. I start by looking for beautiful places online or in my own photographs, listening for a specific feeling to guide me to the correct pic; I need to get butterflies in my tummy when I see it.

Once I’ve picked the reference scene, I usually look for a few more pics of the same place, so I can get a better feel for it, then patch together a few photos in Photoshop to create my composition. When I’m happy with that, I draw over it in Photoshop, mapping out the main shapes, picking colours and forming a basic plan.

Then the fun starts! I paint my underneath layers, always starting with my fluoro coral outlines, which bring a vibrant aliveness. I then paint without thinking too much, layering until I’m not sure what to do next, then photograph the painting, pop it back into Photoshop and sketch some possible next steps. I repeat this until the painting is done, using my intuition to guide me.

What inspires your use of such bold hues?

Colour is the reason I paint and one of my most powerful tools for creating the sense of joy I’m after. I just love how it makes me feel and how changing the hue of a colour by one or two percent can completely change the outcome of a painting.

What’s coming up for you?

It’s a strange time to plan anything, but I know I’ll definitely be painting more landscapes in 2021. I’d like to host some workshops in my new studio and I’m hoping to pull together a new solo show. A long-held dream of mine has come true recently too: a linen collaboration with artist collective Greenhouse Interiors.

I truly believe that art, particularly original art, holds the energy of the artist and passes an emotion on to the person who views it. I hope that my work will continue to spread joy around as many homes as possible. jensievers.com

LAND LOVER “I feel like landscapes have been trying to come through me since I first picked up my brush again,” says Jen of her current focus. “I’m pretty much obsessed. All of my early studies were based on the hills and plants surrounding my home, but each time I tried to paint an abstracted landscape, it never felt quite like I wanted it to, so I’d go back to abstracts or portraits. It really bugged me that I hadn’t nailed my landscape style, so at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, I set aside two weeks to play. It was such a great process, with varied results, but in the end it worked. I found my landscape flow and haven’t stopped ever since. I feel like I’m just getting started.”

TRUE CALLING Jen and Jorin recently turned the garage on the ground floor of their home into a studio, installing bifold doors in place of the roller door at the front and painting the walls with Resene Black White and floor with Resene Wafer. Jen says her go-to tools in this fresh new space are her “fluid acrylics, for their flexibility and the textures they create; good-quality canvases, which are addictive and worth every cent; my phone, for podcasts and audiobooks; and way more tea than any normal human should consume.” Motivation to paint has never been a problem for her — “I struggle to tear myself away from it. I wake up in the morning and rush down to the studio while Mila eats her breakfast. When I’m not painting I’m thinking about painting, or planning a painting, or wishing I was painting.”