Robert Jenkins

Artist Statement
In painting the wilderness, I try to convey its message, not a verbal message that I can write down, but something more elusive that makes sense before words. We are the products of a world that has and still shapes us. In our artificial civilized environment, we lose contact with our roots, our source of being. Living here, close to nature, is a wonderful opportunity, to re-establish whom we are, to discover our being, to understand ourselves better, and to perhaps shape a better future. When I paint nature, I try to experience it first, not just passively, but actively, so that it becomes for me a friend. Allowing that friend to communicate through the painting is a priority.

Sun Laced Hills Pastel 17 x 22 inches $750

Forces of nature - Cathedral Park Pastel 22 x 30 inches $1,200

Glenfir Pastel 22 x 25 inches $1,200

Heart of the Dragon - Squally Point Pastel 30 x 22 inches $1,200

Kamloops Lake Pastel 22 x 27 inches $1,200

Mount Hawthorne Pastel 22 x 26 inches $1,200

Logic Dancing in the Forest (Duet) Pastel 13 x 22 inches each $780

Thompson Valley Pastel 18 x 24 inches $975

Shuswap Hills Pastel 13 x 17 inches $450	Sorrento Hillside Pastel 18 x 20 inches $750

Fertile Valley Pastel 22 x 30 inches $1,200

Sunset at Squally Point Pastel 22 x 30 inches $1,200

Clouds Covering Hills Pastel 10 x 13 inches $250	Burnt Cottonwoods Pastel 16 x 21 inches $725

Okanagan Baroque Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

Spring Returning, Okanagan Mtn. Park Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

Summer's Hills, Okanagan Mtn. Park Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

Winter Covered Hills, Okanagan Mtn. Park Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

Winter's First Dusting, Okanagan Mtn. Park Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

Bear beach Morning Pastel 19 x 24 inches $925	Tracy Arm, Alaska Pastel 17 x 24 inches $775

Dance of the three Cedars SOLD Pastel 19 x 23 inches $925	Goat Peak at Dusk Pastel 18 x 24 inches $925

The Way Up, Mt Hawthorne Pastel 23 x 17 inches $675	Forbidden Plateau Pastel 24 x 18 inches $975

Hill Rythms, Okanagan Mtn Park Pastel 16 x 25 inches $975	Rolling Hills, Okanagan Mtn Park SOLD Pastel 17 x 23 inches $775

Mystic beach at Dusk Pastel 12 x 17 inches $290	Salmon River Valley Pastel 18 x 24 inches $875

The Dragon's Back, Okanagan Mtn Park Pastel 18 x 24 inches $875	Valemount Mountains Pastel 13 x 17 inches $450

Conversations in Landscape 25 sketches

Process
I often sketch in the wilderness, sometimes in pastels as well as in pen and ink. Not everything lends itself easily to being recorded thusly: changing light, rain, bugs, even wildlife can interrupt my work. For larger, more finished work, I resort to a digital camera, computer images, and a studio environment to aid my painting.
I do most of my studio work in pastel, as I like the responsiveness and flexibility of the medium, along with its sense of material. Being an experimentalist, I tend to work up my paintings in layers, approximately at first, and more closely towards the end. Throughout the painting, I find I need to reflect on the experience of 'being there', in order to be true to the subject itself, rather than merely reproducing a photo image. Another influence that exists for me is the 'artistic impulse' to change something, to better convey the feeling of the place, or sometimes just to produce a painting that holds together and contains a rhythm. I do that sometimes. So when I start, I cannot be sure of what I will end up with - but it always manages to hold something of the original experience for me.


Biography
Born Vernon, BC, I attended schools in Vancouver, Trail, and North Vancouver, then UBC and U of Calgary graduating with a doctorate in Cosmic Ray Physics in 1966. Throughout my growing up, I had always drawn and painted, and, although I had chosen to follow my scientific side in my professional career, art remained a strong interest. I began painting seriously with oil paintings of landscape, mostly, but with my move to the New England area and exposure to the New York art scene, gradually shifted to large minimalist geometric shaped canvases, and acrylic colour stains. I continued in this vein when I moved back to Canada (Ottawa) to commence a career as a radio communications scientist with the federal government. A number of exhibitions later, with the pressures of career and a young family, my painting was put on hold - I did not have the time or energy to do it all. Now retired, and living in the Okanagan I have been able to restart my artistic endeavors from a very different perspective. I enjoy hiking in the mountains, and began by drawing the things that I saw. From pen and ink, I moved into pastels, a medium I had not used since childhood, and found the responsiveness of that medium ideal for the present work. The earlier, abstract works reflected an inner sense of order and harmony; my present work in landscape is intended to celebrate the 'not always orderly' message of nature. It is a voyage of discovery which never ceases to surprise and delight.

Solo Exhibitions
2006 Artwalk, Lake Country
2005-6 Peachland Little Schoolhouse
2004-5 solo shows under the sponsorship of Kelowna and District Arts Council, at Westbank and Kelowna Libraries, Cottonwoods Centre.
2003,4 'Conversations in Landscape' a time-lapse series of landscape sketches, shown in Alternator Gallery Kelowna, and Vertigo Gallery Vernon.
1978 an invited participant at 'Science in Art in Science' Ottawa.
1972,78 solo shows at Wells Gallery, Ottawa
1973 'Three Almonte Artists' - a joint exhibition with Juan Geuer and Madeleine Moir
1970 two person show at Gallery One, Portsmouth, NH. with NH artist Jane Kaufmann.

Collections
Work in collections in New Hampshire, Ontario, Calgary, and the Okanagan.