Voices of Experience - Jill Carver

Sandstone Cedar Sage Sky 26 x 30” Oil

“Painting nature, in the very act itself, is for me, the essence of being spiritually alive and open.”

Jill Carver teaches her painting students to think of themselves as poets rather than journalists. She writes, “I want to say something ‘specific’ about my reaction to a place or a moment in time - to capture the essence but not the whole.” Keen observation and immersion in the landscape around her gives Carver the ability to create paintings that express her own vision rather than simply rendering what is before her.

Originally from England, Carver was a curatorial research assistant at the National Portrait Gallery in London for twelve years before moving to the United States. She has since found her inspiration in the American West, basing out of Austin, Texas and Rico, Colorado. We asked her about the origins of art in her life: