Jean Cauthen

jean cauthen

New York painter and critic Barbara Grossman describes Jean’s work as “a perfect wedding of subject matter and handling…compelling and powerfully structured.” Others remark on the painter’s “high level of evolu-tion with pictorial thought” as well as her work’s “extremely rich color and tactile properties.”

Cauthen’s initial response to the landscape is in the form of small, “plein-air” paintings. That is, they are painted outdoors, on location. This immediacy imbues a sense of time and place. Besides her European travels, she has painted in Wyoming, California, Florida, Nevada, Charleston, Bermuda, Hawaii, New York and of course, our own familiar landscape.

In addition to these regions, Cauthen travels yearly to Italy where she spent her infancy, to the terrain that inspired so many European artists. Her paintings suggest that history as well as her own unique voice and her unexpected use of color.

Much of her studio work is inspired by travel or on-location paintings. As opposed to the alla-prima ap-proach of the small landscapes, these larger works are created with layers of glazes, imbuing them with luminosity. A current series of still-lifes (as seen from above) include references to her plein-air painting.creations exist in a vacuum. No piece is complete until it has a wearer who gives fresh life to the item by infusing merging their personality with mine in the mix of daily life.”