Birds of a Feather Artist Profile: Jhenna Quinn Lewis

"I seemed to be born with a love and appreciation for art and nature, or maybe a better word to describe this is awe," says Oregon artist Jhenna Quinn Lewis. "Art is a universal language that can teach, or perhaps touch, us about ourselves and our world. It is a part of all our lives and surrounds us even if we don't notice or understand it."

Jhenna says she has always had the need to create through images on canvas. "The need is to foster an understanding of nature that is reflective, which suggests the presences of some unacknowledged mystery," she says. To Lewis, a painting is "a moment held in time." She believes that "artists strive to capture something in that moment and give it eternity.

"For me, paintings have a meditative quality. Through the manipulation of composition, subject matter, color, light, and shading, I try to bring out a subtle inherent quietness that the viewer can be drawn into. My hope is to create a state of mind. I have always lived in two separate worlds that unite the real and the imagined."

Jhenna's work has been featured in Southwest Art and other magazines. Her paintings are also included in major corporate and private art collections throughout the United States.