Alice Jennex is a Canadian visual artist working in watercolour, and living in Nova Scotia.
Alice’s work explores self-understanding through the evocation of landscapes, combined with the materiality of watercolour paint (thin, thick, textural, and abstracted watermarks) and gestures of the human form.
This work is part of an ongoing investigation which aims to elaborate on a model of emotion in self-portraiture and figurative art and explores how emotional content is generated by internal (bodily) and external experiences (landscapes). Lush Nova Scotian landscapes are depicted within the silhouettes of figures indicating connections between community, home and nature. The intention is to connect the meaningfulness of belonging within the setting of a natural environment, a place which creates a home and raises the importance of sustainability in communities.
To convey a collage, both a landscape and a gestural, figurative drawing aesthetic are presented in intentionally subtle and spacious work. Her artworks contend with the traditional approaches and expectations of watercolour painting. Alice’s practice of creating large-scale watercolour paintings has expanded to include collage, public art, and animation.
Bio: Alice was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where the surrounding lakes and Atlantic ocean inspired her curiosity about nature and first led her to study Biology at Dalhousie University as an approach to understanding the world.
While simultaneously taking drawing classes she subsequently attended NSCAD University where she concentrated on painting and strengthened her abilities with figurative and observational representation. Alice also attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, France, where she experienced an appreciable amount of art in person.
Alice has attended numerous artist-in-residency programs and has exhibited her work in Paris, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Halifax and Toronto. Alice has worked with a Toronto gallery and helped install and exhibit at major art fairs in Toronto, New York, Miami and Palm Springs.
Alice has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, most recently from Canada Council for the Arts to accomplish a watercolour animation. Alice!s most recent projects include a solo exhibition at The Craig Gallery (2021), a mural on the Halifax Ferry Terminal (2021), and a mural in collaboration with STEPS Public Art for a bank in Halifax (2022).