Jenness Cortez, b. Indiana, (United States)
Born in Indiana, Jenness Cortez began her formal art studies at the age of sixteen under the guidance of noted Dutch painter, Antonius Raemaekers. Cortez further developed her fine arts background as a graduate of the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis and student of Arnold Blanche at the Art Students League of New York.
Like the great horse painters George Stubbs and Frederic Remington, Jenness Cortez is first and foremost a draftsman. Beginning in 1977, and for the next twenty years, she received attention for her sporting paintings and her powerful depictions of the horse. During the mid 1990s, her long-time interest in landscape began to blossom. In the tradition of the 19th century Hudson River and Barbizon School painters, her vision comprehends all of nature as a manifestation of the divine. Cortez's landscape images evoke a certain transcendent quality rarely seen in contemporary realism. Her representations of the phenomenal world are intended to be sensitive, passionate and deeply moving.
In her most recent works, Cortez pays homage to history's celebrated artists. Inspired by the light, color and form of the great masters, Cortez incorporates familiar images into painted contemporary settings. By depicting artworks into her compositions, Cortez underscores a classic paradox of painting: the painting as a "window" into an imagined space, and as a physical object; both a metaphysical presence and a material entity. Cortez chooses to utilize her talent for realism to illuminate the ordinary.
Westward Ho, With Today's Best
Jeffrey Carlson Reporting
Editor, Fine Art Today
Moving equine portraits and dusty desert landscapes show off the talents of Jenness Cortez, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Bruce Lawes, and more.
For two weeks beginning March 16, Trailside Galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona, will be exhibiting a selection of Western landscapes from some of its most recognized artists. The gallery is hosting a special open house for "A View to the West" that will coincide with Scottsdale's Thursday Art Walk on March 26, from 6-8 p.m.
The artists exhibiting in "A View to the West" include Bill Anton, Steve Atkinson, Elizabeth Brandon, Jeremy Browne, Ross Buckland, Jenness Cortez, John DeMott, Kathleen Dunphy, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Bruce Lawes, Jan Martin McGuire, S.C. Mummert, Alfredo Rodriguez, Marlin Rotach, William Suys, William Whitaker, and Dinah Worman.
The artworks on view are not just a grouping thoughtlessly thrown together for their shared interest in cacti and mountain ranges. Rather, this particular selection emphasizes profound connections that develop between the people, land, and animals of the American West. In Bruce Lawes' "Paint Over Time," age has worn the old cowboy significantly, while the deep connection he experiences with his mount remains steadfast. The enduring, redemptive nature of their relationship finds parallels in other works throughout the exhibition, where the Western lifestyle is treated with sincerity and honor.
Jenness Cortez had several ideas in mind when she started planning her recent painting titled Conversations with a Cowboy. She knew she would build the composition around Frederic Remington’s painting Stampede by Lightning and that she wanted to include photographs of real cowboys with it. She also had a Charles Russell painting in mind to include, along a bronze sculpture titled Buckaroo.
But, as Cortez started working on thumbnail sketches of those elements, other ideas started popping up: a box of rifle shells; a bullet—the kind that would have been used in a Colt 45; a set of dice and a pile of poker chips; an antique label from a package of smoking tobacco; and a small photograph of Lily Langtry, an actress from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
“I had an idea of what would work, but then came all of these other items, too,” Cortez says. “All of those were part of a cowboy’s life. A cowboy could tell a story about any of them.”
That is how it often goes for Cortez, who has become well known over the past decade for painting art within her art. READ MORE
Jenness Cortez unveils new western paintings at Trailside Gallery in Jackson Hole
JACKSON HOLE, WY.- As part of its annual Western Classics Show, Trailside Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, presents the first Western paintings by internationally acclaimed artist Jenness Cortez . On view August 11 - 24, 2014, Cortez employs the backdrop of the old west to unveil the next installment in her thought-provoking “Homage to the Creative Spirit” series. Among the many topics raised by her new Western art is Cortez’s heartfelt conviction that iconic images, when seen in familiar domestic settings, can inspire each of us to rediscover and revalue our own creative potential.
In her first foray into Western art, Cortez continues to reexamine the classic paradox of realism: the painting both as a “window” into an imagined space and as a physical object. Summarizing her creative process, Cortez explains, “Every painting begins with a vision seen in the artist’s mind. Sometimes the finished piece appears in the mind full-blown, and at other times it is amorphous––yet with some beguiling character that begs to be developed. In either case, between that first inspiration and the finished painting lie hours of research, thousands of choices and, of course, the great joy of painting. The process is organic. Even with a well-conceived composition in place, the painting has a life of its own and the best ones surprise even the artist with twists and turns that outshine the most clever of plans. It’s as if the creative spirit insinuates itself into the work, wanting to serve its own best interest with solutions that far exceed the artist’s original, limited vision.”
The Jackson Hole Art Auction is pleased to introduce the inaugural Top Tier juried competition this year. Top Tier artists, chosen by invitation, are a select group of contemporary artists with exemplary auction records. Participants include William Acheff, John Banovich, Carl Brenders, Ken Carlson, Jenness Cortez, Martin Grelle, Z.S. Liang, Bonnie Marris, Tucker Smith, Mian Situ, and Morgan Weistling. A $10,000 cash prize will be awarded to the artist whose work is of significant merit, as determined by a three person jury: Peter Hassrick, Director Emeritus & Senior Scholar, Buffalo Bill Center of the West; Jerry Smith, PhD, Curator of American & Western American Art, Phoenix Art Museum; Adam Duncan Harris, PhD, Petersen Curator of Art & Research, National Museum of Wildlife Art. The award will be announced prior to the start of the auction, during which all Top Tier paintings will be sold.
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