About Jill

Jill Steenhuis, an Atlanta native, is a French Impressionistic Painter who lives in the south of France. Jill earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Sweet Briar College in 1980. Following graduation, she enrolled in the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing in Aix-en-Provence, which follows in the tradition of Cézanne.

Jill has exhibited solo shows in New York City, Greenwich, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington DC, Dallas, Aix-en-Provence and Paris. Her paintings are full of strength and color. Among the collectors of her work are the late Mr. Peter Jennings of ABC Evening News, Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Hardaway III, The Federal Reserve bank of Georgia, Mr. & Mrs. Doug Billian of Art & Antiques Magazine, and others.

The artist resides in an old, country house in Aix-en-Provence with her husband and their three sons.

Artist's Statement

Art or the act of creating is always what I have loved doing most since I was a child. Because my mother died when I was only 8 years old, the act of creating filled a void or made a link, being at the same time a concrete & spiritual activity. My father had a passion for Shakespeare and art. He gave me a book of Cézanne's paintings by John Rewald for my 16th birthday, thus began my interest in Cézanne.

After 4 years at Sweet Briar College in Virginia with a degree in Studio Art, where I had Art History & extensive technical training in all mediums of expression (painting, drawing, print making, sculpture), I felt more like a scientist than an artist. In June of 1980 at the age of 21, I entered The Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing in Aix-en-Provence - a school that taught me painting in the tradition of Cézanne. What I learned in this school changed my life. Painting "en plein air devant le motif " in order to listen to nature and use my eyes to see, engaging my senses to perceive the parallel between nature & eternity. Drawing and painting became a way of life to the point that my eyes began to see all things in terms of light and dark, warm and cool. I learned the discipline of painting on a daily basis & the necessity to approach nature in a humble way, to let go of the intellect & of self and let the brush strokes go on rapidly, uncalculatingly in a sort of dialogue.

From 1981 to 1983 when the school was closed, the spirit & philosophy of the school continued among us who remained in Aix. Daily drawing & painting sessions continued at Chateau Noir, seminars & critiques also took place out of a need to search for our own vision & to remind ourselves of the truths that Leo Marchutz had given us as a base or foundation. This was a time when I realized The Leo Marchutz School was more a movement like Impressionism or the Barbizon School that it was an institution. It is vital to art of this century; it is here to stay.

I took a studio at Chateau Noir - to live and paint in the very spots where Cézanne had painted & in Arles where Van Gogh had been - how intimidating it was & still is and difficult to make your own. The more I paint, the more I see, & the more I understand that the only way to arrive at one's own vision is through work - driving myself to go beyond my limits, stretching myself to listen, feel, smell, & taste nature with my paints & canvas.

Now, with 20 years of living & painting here in the Aix countryside, I continue to work steadily outdoors. I feel a strong attachment to the small farmer. There is nothing more exciting for me to paint than a group of workers gathering-in the garlic from the fields. The smell of the garlic & the sun-baked soil, while my eyes & heart are engaged in the scene of the garlic pickers bobbing up & down like musical notes as they pull up the garlic, their straw hats are like halos making them into saints - the humblest among us. My heart is in it. As I look back on my work from this year, I see a certain energy in it all. I see that I am still attached to my influences - the great masters & all that I learned from The Marchutz School - but I also perceive a step forward in my own vision. Day after day I bring home wet canvases & hang them on the walls until there is no more space left. Seeing all the work helps to give me courage to discover in my next painting a new poetry in nature that is my own & at the same time "dans la ligne d'art" as Leo put it.

Jill Steenhuis

About the Creative Process

I am sharing with you a glimpse of the process for returning to my work after my shows. My soul should be showing me the way. Nothingness stares at me straight on. Where is the fertility of my creative spirit? In my painting the catalyst is nature –being immersed in it, my soul is moved to create. A multitude of elements envelope my being, embrace me, enter my soul. In the act of painting, my soul engages in a dialogue with nature. The mystery is before me. Silence - I must enter the realm of silence. Listen, not to pre-conceived notions, not to voices of the to-do list, but to the sounds of the reeds swishing together in the breeze. Smell the earth, notice the movement, like brush strokes zigzagging across the page of sky and earth in a calligraphy that shows the way to my soul. I must render, not state; suggest, not complete; remain sensual, not intellectual; pure, not literal; courageous, not safe and never misuse the powers I have been given. There are so many choices. Focus on one. Which one? The one you love. How do I start - from the inside out or from the outside in? Begin from within, placing your shadows to give birth to the light. In my silence I can hear. In my blindness I can see. In my spirit I can touch and taste the mystery. It is not what I expect. For if it was, it would be calculated; it would be safe; it would not be created because it would not be unknown. It would not be my “blue peninsula” as Emily Dickinson calls it. The true mystery reveals itself as I work, as I let go. It is a gift. There, the rectangle exists. It exists to make one taste the eternal.

A passage from Dante's Paradiso that says it all:

“Within its depths I saw ingathered,
Bound by love in one mass,
The scattered leaves of the universe: 
Substance and accidents and their relations,
As though fused, so that what I speak of is one single flame.”