David Jenks
Oil Paintings
djenks.com
art@djenks.com
(818) 497-0875
Land & Sea and Skyscapes
Sky Light
Winging Westward
Summer Evening On Muscongus Bay
Florida Suite #4
The Edge Of Night
Atlantic
Ascension
The ability of a work of art to uplift our spirits is its greatest attribute. If it can inspire and transport the viewer to another level beyond the material or the visual, then it has accomplished something beyond the physical act of its creation.
I am inexorably drawn to the sea. I paint portraits, still lifes and landscapes, but the effects of sun and clouds over the water are the most compelling. They also demand everything the palette has to offer—and more. I'm painting form but always prospecting for light, striving to see a deeper harmony, to open the door to pure energy.
I am inexorably drawn to the sea. I paint portraits, still lifes and landscapes, but the effects of sun and clouds over the water are the most compelling. They also demand everything the palette has to offer—and more. I'm painting form but always prospecting for light, striving to see a deeper harmony, to open the door to pure energy.
Evening At The Headlands
Born in 1943, David grew up and studied in Massachusetts, graduating from Williams College with an Art History degree in 1965. He also attended the Yale Summer School of Music and Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He started drawing at an early age, particularly inspired by the illustrations of Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth in books from his father's childhood.
San Joaquin Symphony
Although graduating from college as an aspiring fine artist, it was not until the mid-1980s that he made a full commitment to painting. The intervening years saw various detours into the pop culture of the day and then stints as a carpenter, including five years at Hollywood film studios.
Plein air painting on the Big Sur and Mendocino coasts of California resulted in his first one-man show at the Stary Sheets Gallery in Gualala CA in 1986. That was followed by seven years in Sedona, Arizona while he spent the summers painting on the coast of Maine. Longing for the sea during the Southwest winters convinced him to return to the northern California coast, where he has made Mendocino his permanent home.
David's work has been featured in galleries across the country and in Japan. Articles about him have appeared in American Artist, Southwest Art, American Art Collector and Art of the West. Several of his images have been published, most prominently now by Editions Ltd.; and his paintings hang in a number of corporate collections including Bank of America, Fluor Corporation, and Raymond James Financial, Inc.
Although graduating from college as an aspiring fine artist, it was not until the mid-1980s that he made a full commitment to painting. The intervening years saw various detours into the pop culture of the day and then stints as a carpenter, including five years at Hollywood film studios.
Plein air painting on the Big Sur and Mendocino coasts of California resulted in his first one-man show at the Stary Sheets Gallery in Gualala CA in 1986. That was followed by seven years in Sedona, Arizona while he spent the summers painting on the coast of Maine. Longing for the sea during the Southwest winters convinced him to return to the northern California coast, where he has made Mendocino his permanent home.
David's work has been featured in galleries across the country and in Japan. Articles about him have appeared in American Artist, Southwest Art, American Art Collector and Art of the West. Several of his images have been published, most prominently now by Editions Ltd.; and his paintings hang in a number of corporate collections including Bank of America, Fluor Corporation, and Raymond James Financial, Inc.
Sundown From The Malibu Hills
Storm Surge
Even though Jenks has painted the sea and sky endless times, the scene in his painting “Morning Over the Gulf” is a first for him. Jenks painted the sky and ocean as seen from the plane on his way home from one of his Florida trips. The painting won him an honorable mention in the landscape category of the competition held by the Art Renewal Center.
When he depicts the sea, the paintings essentially “become studies in light itself as it’s filtered, bounced, and reflected by atmosphere and water,” he says. Jenks painted “Morning Over the Gulf” on a large canvas to “convey the grandeur and complexity of the view.”
At the end of his statement, Jenks quotes Victor Hugo in “Les Misérables,” almost as a gift for us to ponder: “There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”
When he depicts the sea, the paintings essentially “become studies in light itself as it’s filtered, bounced, and reflected by atmosphere and water,” he says. Jenks painted “Morning Over the Gulf” on a large canvas to “convey the grandeur and complexity of the view.”
At the end of his statement, Jenks quotes Victor Hugo in “Les Misérables,” almost as a gift for us to ponder: “There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”
Giclees
Moonset
Emmys Garden
Foggy Sundown
After The Storm