Artist’s Statement

of Jean Capron

I have been drawing pictures for as long as I can remember. I first tried oil painting in junior high, and that has been my true love ever since. Second to painting is printmaking, which I started in 2009 at the College of Marin. I initially saw printmaking as a sort of enhanced drawing medium though I now appreciate it as so much more. Drawing, painting, and printmaking: These are what I love doing.

It took me a long time to admit and embrace the fact that I am primarily a story teller in my artwork. Whether still life or figurative there is, in nearly every composition of mine, a storyline, even if only in my mind.

The female figure is my preferred subject matter. While I often incorporate landscapes, flowers, butterflies and birds, and other animals, in my compositions they are always chosen for their relationship to the figure (and the ever present story).

The act of painting, drawing, making prints is my safe place. I create a world I understand and/or would like to live in. Occasionally, I will take on negative subject matter as a way to release my frustration, sadness, anger at the cruelties in our world.

I am only too aware of the passage of time, in my own life especially. In my late 30’s and my 40’s, I spent ten years as a graphic designer doing very illustrative work. During that time and into my sixties I all but set my artwork aside to pursue something quite different: Music. In fact, I started a new 20 year career as a piano player, organist, choir director. I learned a lot from those ventures, but I’m now in a place where I have the time and the freedom to devote to that which I love the most – painting, drawing, printmaking.