Canadian-American artist Jackie Reeves uses mixed media to bring together figurative and abstract elements in her art. She was raised in Montreal by architect parents and studied design art at Concordia University. Her artistic career began as a professional mural painter for corporate, private and public spaces. Concurrently, Reeves co founded the Plymouth Community Art Center. In 2010 she earned her MFA in painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design at the Fine Art Work Center in Provincetown. She has since exhibited in solo and group shows in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington DC and North Carolina. She has been profiled in numerous publications including WHITEHOT Magazine, the Boston Globe, Art New England and Artscope Magazine.
Reeves is an active member of the Cape Cod community offering mentorship through her art classes and workshops. Jackie works out of Chalkboard Studio in the Old Schoolhouse of Barnstable Village.
I start my paintings without a solid plan. It’s like taking a road trip with no map or destination in mind, only knowing that I want to go somewhere I haven’t been before. I use materials and processes that show evidence of chance and spontaneity. Whether it’s spills and drips of paint on canvas, pooling watercolor on mylar or ink bleeding into rice paper, the unpredictable outcome becomes the playground where I bring abstract and figurative elements together.
I often get lost in the layers of built up marks and have to find my way through an editing process which involves cutting, ripping, erasing, sanding, rearranging…. Eventually I start to recognize something; a memory of people and places, or dreams from the past or of the future. I never reach a destination however, for as soon as I think I have arrived somewhere a whole new set of painting issues and curiosities arise and I’m off on another journey. Along the way paintings are left behind as evidence of my search for meaning.