Jillian Fortin

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Artificial color and geometry are the two driving forces behind the majority of my work. While many people pride themselves on working within a limited color palette, my goal is to create as many new colors as possible within a painting. Creating a color that I seldom see energizes me. My paintings are constructed on large canvases, typically 36”x48”. I work with oil paint and occasionally add charcoal or dry pastels to enhance the surface.
Whether hidden throughout or underneath the layers, geometric shape and form seem to be prominent in most of my works. By exploring the relationship between bright colors a sense of balance and symmetry can often be found. Essential to my work are the build up of layers, dripping, overlapping, scraping off, and scrubbing away of paint. Thin washes, thick paint; the many different layers and textures are what really bring my paintings to life.
The beauty of working within the realm of abstraction is that each viewer has the added opportunity to take away something different and personal to them. It’s not the same as looking at a representational painting where the work you’re looking at is obvious. I want the viewer to have the opportunity to get lost within the colors and millions of layers within the painting. If they can then sit back and tell me their own story about what my painting is about, that is all that I want from them. Sometimes my paintings don’t even have a personal story behind them, I would rather them be open for interpretation.