About the Artist

Jennifer Kershaw is a representational painter working in oils, building the image up with glazes of colour, in the tradition of Dutch still life and Canadian painter, Mary Pratt.

She has always been inspired by the transformative power of light; how it can lift up the everyday into something jewel-like and extraordinary, while its transience inspires her to never take things for granted; to enjoy, savour, and celebrate what we have while it lasts, because as a wise Beatle once said, “tomorrow never knows”. Her most recent body of work is an exploration of sense memory – certain smells, flavours, songs, and physical items that remind her of people, places, or times long past. In painting the personal, she hopes to touch upon the universal.

Jen was born in Scarborough, Ontario, and then lived in Milton Ontario after her father’s untimely passing in 1990. In 2004, she earned her B.A. Honours degree from the University of Guelph, majoring in Studio Art with a minor in Art History. It was there in the paint spattered studios of Zavitz Hall, that she began to specialize in painting under Monica Tap, and had her revelatory collision with the work of Mary Pratt.

Kershaw is represented by Orange Art Gallery in Ottawa, Canada and her work is held in private collections in Canada and the United States.