Newmarket artist brings her vibrant, colourful paintings to Victoria Park Gallery

Jennifer Padden (Beemer) loves bright, vibrant colours, and that is beautifully apparent in her paintings.

The Newmarket artist has her work on display at the Victoria Park Gallery in downtown Kincardine, for the first time, from now until the end of April.

Raised in the tiny Village of Iron Bridge in northern Ontario, with her parents and 12 siblings, Padden learned the love of gardening from her mother. This brought out her passion for beautiful, bold colours and how they interact with each other.

She spent her formative years working for the Ontario Legislature in Toronto and she and husband, Bob, have three children and three grandchildren.

While she enjoyed gardening, she had to step back from that hobby due to the physical demands. Then, about four years ago, she was watching a Bob Ross painting show and thought she might take up painting instead.

So, she taught herself to paint and has spent the past two years as a serious, full-time artist.

Inspired and motivated by the masters, Vincent Van Gogh, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, and Canadian artists Robert Genn and The Group of Seven, she has been told that some of her work is reminiscent of Van Gogh, Steven Lowry and Grandma Moses.

Padden's love for colour, shapes and perspective, has given her an overall sense of freedom to paint whatever comes to mind. For her, painting is also very therapeutic as she becomes totally engrossed in creating a painting, frequently going without sleep or food in order to capture her visions.

"I love putting colours together," she says. "All of these images come from my imagination. I get an idea and then I paint it."

Her goal for each painting is to draw out various perceptions from viewers, while remaining true to her own style. More recently, she has begun to incorporate a personal story for some of her paintings in order to give more meaning to her work.

While she has dabbled in watercolour and acrylics, she prefers oil paints because of their flexibility and depth of colour. She says her favourite painting, "City Life," began as a pond but she didn't like it, so she changed it.

Once she began to take her art seriously, she wanted to start displaying it. She had been to Kincardine before as she travelled across Ontario, checking out various galleries.

"A year ago, December, I decided I needed to get my art into some galleries," says Padden. "I was asked by the Victoria Park Gallery to exhibit my work, so here I am."

She has 16 pieces hanging in the guest gallery and is very excited about having it there for the first time. "I never thought I'd have my work on display," she says, "but as you can see, I'm a very colourful person."

While she does the painting, her husband frames all the pieces for exhibit. She hopes to have her work in more galleries and plans to have a website developed soon.

The Victoria Park Gallery is located in the Kincardine Arts Centre. Its winter hours are Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-3 p.m. For more information, check out the Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/victoriaparkgallerykincardine/?fref=ts