[By By Kathryn R. Burke | Montrose Mirror | August 5. 2024] Do you see it? Look at her paintings. They flow. Jenny McIntyre paints motion with ribbons of color: vivid canyon walls shimmering with heat, cool flowing water, shady green trees, and hot rocks where a rattlesnake might bask in the sun.

Jenny paints Colorado’s canyon country with her own version of chiaroscuro—dark, shadowy crevices, bright sunlit rockfaces—deep pools of contrast that create dimensional depths.

She refers to her work as abstraction, constructed landscapes—her own way of seeing the natural world. Each painting is a personal journey, yet one where Jenny invites you to join her and immerse yourself in the beauty of the moment, the timelessness of a place created through eons of earth’s geological shifts. Walking beside her, viewing a landscape through Jenny’s eyes in one of her paintings, opens a crack in time that leads you to a place of wonder…and ease. Vivid, strongly emotional, her paintings are also an exercise in calmness.

Her art creates a welcome release of anxiety—something we all suffer from right now with so many changes in today’s world. Jenny’s paintings are timeless. And show us that beauty endures regardless of temporary upheavals and setbacks. Whatever seems wrong in your world today is insignificant in comparison to what built these canyons and how they have endured over the ages.

Jenny began her artistic career with photography, which partially explains her work and how she selects and captures a scene she wants to preserve. She works in oils, a medium gives her more freedom to create depth. And depth is what the photographer sees when looking through the viewfinder of a camera. The photographer homes in on a particular scene that catches the eye, choosing a focal point and cutting out the extraneous—adjusting the depth of field—to focus on what is most important in the moment. It’s another form of artistic license. There’s a whole big scene out there; the person behind the camera lens sees what they want to capture, the same way an artist uses paint and paintbrush to capture that localized part of a landscape.

While studying photography, Jenny started taking art classes. “I always wanted to paint,” she said. “I’d shoot photos, then make sketches to design how I wanted to combine the images for a show or a theme competition.” She would adjust colors, crop, and arrange with photographer’s eye, and a lot of artistic licenses. Much as she does today with her paintings.

Jenny currently resides in Montrose, Colorado. When she’s not painting or teaching Tai Chi and Yoga, she explores the landscape with her dog and camera.

See her work at the “The 610 Collective Art Show, “Colors and Circles,“ featuring Jenny McIntyre and Gay Leachman. The show is at 610 Clinton St., Ridgway and will hang through August. https://www.610arts.com/upcoming-exhibitions