Chicagoan Jenny Learner has been making art her entire life. Classically
trained at the American Academy of Art and self-taught in interior, surface
design & photography. For over 40 years this multi-faceted artist has been
designing custom room dividers, screens, hand-painted wall coverings,
fabrics, murals, site-specific art for Interior Designers and Architects. She
exhibits, teaches, curates, juries locally and nationally. A published featured
artist in Encaustic Art in the Twenty-First Century by Anne Lee & E. Ashley
Rooney, "Dining Among the Stars" by Michael Curry, several Chicago
magazines and newspapers. Her work is in the permanent collection of the
Encaustic Art Institute in Santa Fe New Mexico and in many private
collections worldwide.
After an introduction to encaustic she fell in love with the ancient medium of
fusing fire with beeswax and pure pigment. Encaustic became her elixir of
life. Imagine painting and sculpting within the wonderful realm of flowers
and honey. The medium’s luminosity, transparency, aromatherapy, alchemy,
with the unexpected results constantly surprise her.
She gains inspiration for her work from earth’s multiple landscapes and
wonders including raw gemstones, outer space, medicine, life, & dreams.
Further curious and fascinated with evolution, anthropology and time, as an
artist Jenny is grateful to be living in this digital age with resources at her
fingertips. The photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and the Hubble
telescope’s imagery of the Universe endlessly muse her.
As a multi-style decorative artist I am always trying new techniques and
media. I choose to express peace and beauty in most of my work and hope
my enthusiasm is transferred to the viewer. I see the world through rosecolored glasses and have a deep love and concern for our planet’s
environmental future.
Professionally I divide my time as a fine artist and teacher. I work on sitespecific artwork with interior designers and architects. Some of the things I
design and build are mobiles, custom room dividers, screens, murals on
canvas, floor-cloths, and Lazy Susan's.
My favorite work is making fine art, and teaching art to children and seniors.
My first passion as an artist was photography. It still is and I take
photographs everyday and use the imagery for visual resources for future
works.
This piece I created for one of my Hero’s, Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish Diplomat and
Humanitarian. I started by painting the cradled birch panel with Black paint. Then I drew
hundreds of tears using NeoColors ( Beeswax crayons from Switzerland ). Then layers of
Encaustic medium ( 8 parts beeswax, 2 parts damar crystal). Scraping the painting and
sculpted Petals to hold the Tears. Sculpted tiny handles out of the scrapings to hold my hair
beaded with real Moonstone Teardrops.
This piece is multiple layers of the bio luminescent pigments painted, gently fused (no torch,
just small heat gun). Then I had slivers from previous paintings saved that I loved. They are the
small shapes with black lines. I just pushed them on warm from my hand. And added a few
crystals. This one glows in the dark.
This piece has around 12-15 Layers on a Cradled Birch Panel. Each layer a transparent
different color of Encaustic (Molten Beeswax) pigmented with bioluminescent pigments. Then
many layers of pressed flowers in between layers of wax. Then added Swarovski Crystals to
embellish. It glows in the dark.
This piece is created using watercolor paper that I had in a Waterbath using Sennilier Shellac
based inks to achieve deep color. I then tore the paper and glued to a cradled panel and did an
Encaustic painting on top. Lots of fusing on this one to get the melted sky. This one is my
favorite. Its a combo imaginary earth from above Ireland.
This piece is multiple layers of Encaustic medium using the bioluminescent pigments and
gentle scraping, very little fusing. A few favorite flowers embedded into painting