Jenny Ross is a Scottish-Canadian artist living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland. She originally qualified in veterinary medicine and changed her career to a visual artist, working in this field for several years before studying painting at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. She uses a wide variety of media in her drawings, paintings and three-dimensional works and is especially interested in the interactions between media and their unplanned and exciting results. Her inspirations include the Scottish landscape and farmland where she lives, folklore and spiritual practices. Her work has been exhibited in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London and has won several awards.
Artist Statement:
Through painting and drawing I aim to map real and imagined spaces, drawn from my own experiences, dreams and written work. My work explores spiritual practices and rituals, pulling on both local and global contexts. I explore witchcraft in relation to landscape and the natural environment and sometimes the work has a tangible presence of animals and figures. My inspirations come from a wide range of sources including books, found images and the immediate landscape surrounding my home in North-East Scotland.
Walking with my thoughts is an important part of my process. My images are rarely planned beforehand as I prefer to react to the media and colours during the creation process. Mixing media excites me and I love this unpredictable and dynamic process. I have been making my own paint from found, natural pigments such as ash from fire, mushrooms and earth, this process being a ritual within the practice of making.