Free to Paint
Ryan Jensen, Evening Light, Humboldt Bay, oil, 5 x 9 feet.
This story was featured in the March/April 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art March/April 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
IT WAS A PERFECT day for painting en plein air along California’s northern coast. The sunlight sparkled on the water in Humboldt Bay, where Ryan Jensen was hard at work on a large-scale marina scene when a seagull flying overhead—to put it politely—dropped a little something that landed along the bottom of his 5-by-9-foot canvas. Jensen laughs as he recalls that frustrating moment now, but he also finds an important moral in the story. “It’s an exercise in just letting it be—there’s a greater force here at work,” says the Blue Lake, CA, artist. “The excitement is in the spontaneity of working outdoors.”
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- Ryan Jensen, Between Charlotte and Mary Lou, oil, 5 x 9 feet.
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- Ryan Jensen, Blue Vase With Flowers, oil, 40 x 30.
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- Ryan Jensen, Ryan’s Hunting Gear, oil, 40 x 30.
Jensen aims to paint with emotion and authenticity, and his expressive, impressionistic approach is getting noticed. He won Best of Show at the Mendocino Open Paint Out in both 2018 and 2019, and last fall, his work received a nod for Best Water in the PleinAir Salon. But for the artist, these successes mark just the beginning of his creative journey as he explores new, sometimes risky techniques, including painting massive works on location, as artists like Joaquín Sorolla once did. “I want to stay open to new ideas about how to get there,” he explains, “and by ‘there,’ I mean a work that really surprises me.”
Although Jensen has been painting seriously for only three years, he has been drawing avidly since he was a boy. He received early artistic guidance from his mother, a graphic designer, and his father, an illustrator and painter. “My dad would pause movies and talk about the great light in them—the cool light and the warm light and the mood that created,” remembers Jensen, who investigates those very same aspects in his work today. “When I’m painting en plein air, I feel good,” he adds. “All my problems go away, and I’m just focusing on the light that’s happening and the composition and the design.”
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- Ryan Jensen, December Flowers, oil.
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- Ryan Jensen, Wave at Sunset, oil.
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- Ryan Jensen, Two Vases in Dark Room, oil, 40 x 30.
Before he began painting, Jensen served in the Marine Corps, completing three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in his 20s. Now, as a husband and a father, he takes his job as a painter just as seriously. When he worries about not being “good enough” artistically, says Jensen, “I use all that fear and I channel that into learning how to be a better painter. You paint like your life depends on it.” —Kim Agricola
representation
www.ryanjensenartwork.com
This story was featured in the March/April 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art March/April 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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