Jill Brown, nee McBride

Born: Vancouver, BC

In 1996, a 6 week medical leave from my high school counselling position was going to find me at home with limited mobility and time on my hands. With some borrowed brushes from the school’s art teacher I started a journey – then a single minded pursuit – of learning to share on canvas my vision of a world of beauty.

A course at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (now University), provided a foundation upon which I added intense courses every summer for many years with a different international award winning artist. I was also privileged to have a generous mentor and friend in Ruth Sawatsky who was also an international award winning artist.

My preference is for abstraction and metaphor as a means of communication, where line, texture, and colour express the energy and “feeling” I draw from the subject matter. I execute my paintings with immediacy, spontaneity, directness, and authenticity, and with the understanding they will be chosen for interior spaces where people will see the same painting many times. My hope is that this gives their owners something visually new to explore over time, and that they convey the same positive feelings from which they were created.