Biography

Jeanne Matheny was born in 1953, the second of seven children in Providence, Rhode Island. Her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona when she was 5 years old. Her father was a Scout Master and introduced the family to the wildlife and wildlands of the Southwest. Camping, fishing and hiking through towering mountain ranges and spectacular lakes with her parents, five brothers, and sister, was the inception of her love for nature and the outdoors.

She began painting and drawing at an early age, finding inspiration in over 40 trips camping at Grand Canyon National Park, where she hiked to the bottom of the canyon, to the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch. Throughout her life she has journeyed through Navajo Nations Reservations, the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, Bryce Canyon National Park and Monument Valley in Utah, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and countless other parklands across the United States.

These adventures brewed in her the majesty and wonder of the wilderness.

Matheny pursued fine art painting at Glendale College, where her passion for the medium of oil painting and techniques that date back to the 15^th century began. She started painting wildlife from as far away as Africa to the natural world she explored in North America.

As her interest in subjects, style, composition and form advanced and grew, she continued studying with other nationally known contemporary painters.

In 2006, Matheny studied with the late Johnnie Liliedahl, where she learned a blend of traditional, academic studio techniques with modern plein-air color and paint applications. In that same year, she learned landscape techniques with Bill Bayer, and with the internationally renowned and collected painter Linda Coulter, learning Coulter’s famed Grisaille technique – the mastery of light and dark in grey tones.

While continuing to study and paint, Matheny was the lead creative designer for Artglass Studios & Company, started by her and her late husband, Dwight. There, she used her knowledge of the natural world, painting, and creativity to develop original stained-glass compositions for hundreds of Tampa Bay-area homes. Discovering the “brush-strokes” in the glass and composing each commissioned piece with the fine detail she brings to her paintings made this a thriving business for decades.

But nothing could keep Matheny from her first love, the outdoors and painting.

Travelling and living throughout North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, she began to paint the detailed wildlife and environments she was surrounded by now in the Southeast, just as she had in her earlier career in the Southwest. Her work became simultaneously more meticulous and yet more personally expressive – combining the imitative realism of the wildlife she so loved with her own impressionistic feeling of the environment in which she found them.

In 2008, and again in 2012, Matheny directed more attention to still life painting and studied with the nationally awarded painter Elizabeth Robbins. In 2008 and 2017, she focused on her oil painting of wildlife again, specifically birds, with the internationally recognized painter and teacher Sherry Nelson.

Now once again, living in the Tampa Bay Area, Matheny’s work has advanced as she has blended her knowledge and style with the specific wildlife of her surroundings.

Inspired by the uniqueness of the land-based raptor, the Osprey, Matheny has made this bird of prey her latest subject in a new series. One of only five land-based birds that boasts a worldwide distribution, the beauty, splendor and unique behavior of this dramatic predator has captured Matheny’s eye.

Matheny is a member of Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association & Gallery, Southern Appalachian Arts Guild, Mountain Regional Arts & Crafts Guild, Society of Decorative Painters and the Dunedin Fine Arts Center.

She has won “Best in Show” twice in North Georgia Art Competitions, and was chosen as the “Top Artist” in 2017 at the Blue Ridge Trout Art Festival and Competition. Her work and commissions are shown in the Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Gallery and Artworks Artisan Centre in North Georgia, the Thistle Boutique & Gallery in Dunedin, FL and homes throughout Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.

She continues to paint, do commissioned work, explore and teach painting in Tampa Bay.

Website: www.jeannematheny.com

Email:  jeannemathenyart@gmail.com

Phone:   706-970-0753