Originally from London, England, Jill Carver moved to the United States in 2002. Before becoming a full time professional artist, she was a curatorial research assistant at the National Portrait Gallery in London for twelve years. Jill lives in Rico, Colorado, a small historical mining town nestled in the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado.
After establishing her name winning numerous Artists Choice awards at the country’s top plein events, such as Laguna Beach Invitational, Plein Air Easton, Sedona, San Luis Obispo and Telluride, she has participated in premier annual shows such as The Coors and The Bighorn Rendevous. In 2014, Jill won the Gold Medal (Artists’ Choice) for Best in Show at Maynard Dixon Country and in the same year was inaugurated as Signature Member in ‘Plein Air Painters of America’. Her work is represented by The Medicine Man Gallery, The Insight Gallery, and Wood River Fine Arts. She is a popular and highly regarded teacher.
Skip Whitcomb: “Jill is making a powerful imprint on a whole generation of painters and opening eyes and minds to what western painting can be.”
About her work Jill Carver writes, “Painting is my spiritual compass in life. My work explores the dialogue between abstraction and realism, and I enjoy that ‘dance’ or ‘tension’. Artists should think of themselves as poets rather than journalists. I want to say something ‘specific’ about my reaction to a place or a moment in time – to capture the essence of the visual experience but not render every fact. I process any idea through analyzing it in terms of shapes of abstract color rather than content. My expressive brushwork gives a sense of motion and emotion, and allows me to control the rhythm and dynamics. By not explaining fully every fact or detail, the viewer enters a dialogue with the painting and has to complete the thought of what has been suggested. Hopefully, they are then immersed in an experience beyond observation.”