Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Peart explores alternate
possibilities for iconic landscapes
By Marie-Elena Schembri
In her sunlit backyard studio, built by 37-year-old artist Jennifer Peart with the help of her father, a smattering of blues, greens and peaches pop against earth tones; Peart’s signature color palette surprises and yet doesn’t distract from the stunning locations she paints.
Encased in dynamic compositions that incorporate the natural grain of the wooden panels she builds and paints on, places like Yosemite or the Yuba River emerge as the sacred oases they have been to Peart.
Peart describes these as “visionary landscapes,” imagining a future with sustainable relationships between people and the natural environment. Peart’s paintings are inspired by possibility and the embrace of change, not replicas but rather re-interpretations of these natural landmarks through a hopeful lens.
“I’m imagining those landscapes in their most ideal state,” Peart says.
Growing up near Placerville, art and nature are synonymous for this Sacramento teacher-turned-professional artist. When she left behind a 10-year elementary and art teaching career to focus on her art in 2022, Peart couldn’t have predicted the success she’d find in just three short years.
While hiking in Yosemite over summer break, Peart realized she needed more time off from teaching. “I thought I would take a year off and reclaim my practice, and I didn’t go back,” she said, focusing instead on building her studio and pouring herself into her art.
Now, her watercolor, oil and acrylic paintings of California’s iconic landscapes are garnering attention locally and beyond, with her art and studio featured in several publications, including Create! Magazine and In Her Studio. Despite the attention and a busy schedule of art fairs and exhibitions, Peart is as dedicated to her craft as ever. It’s become a full-time job managing the demand, but her success is far from a “lucky break.” She tends to her art practice like a garden, nurturing both the creative and the business side of things.
“I’ve had my creative goals — getting better at rendering, getting faster, getting faster at painting my landscapes and managing my time better because as most folks know, it’s not all romantics sitting alone in your studio painting. There is lots of backend work and creating a business plan, marketing plan, updating your website,” Peart says, adding that applying for opportunities to show her work takes up a large chunk of her time.
“In January, February and March, I had an application due almost every day,” Peart says, highlighting a work ethic that goes beyond the norm.
May is a busy month for Peart, with her month-long solo exhibition “State of Change: Visions of California” at Sacramento’s janeGallery, participating in an online exhibit, showing her work at Saratoga Art Show and an upcoming watercolor workshop at Casino Mine Ranch in Plymouth.
Still, she stays grounded in her purpose: to show people that a better way of coexisting with nature is possible.
“I’m not just painting pretty pictures of California. I’m thinking about what is the impact on that landscape? Is it bark beetle? Is it farm runoff, pesticide runoff? Does it trace back to the dams that were built? I love stories like the Klamath River being fully restored, that dam being brought down and the salmon returning and the indigenous folks celebrating the salmon. I think those things are possible and there are solutions to these problems,” Peart says.