Jill Penkhus Art show "Tango Club" at Ojai Art Center
Art by Jill Penkhus
Art by Jill Penkhus

Dates: May 6 to June 2
Ojai Center for the Arts
113 S. Montgomery St.
Ojai, CA 93023
RECEPTION MAY 14, 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Artist's Statement
A selection from the artist's series, Tango Club, will open at the Ojai Art Center Main Gallery 113 S. Montgomery Street, on May 6th. The one woman show will feature large acrylic/pastel paintings on canvas. For this exhibit, the artist chose anatomy in action through exaggerated dance style, relationship between the tango partners, with a few quirky ideas thrown in. (Various animal heads substituted for heads of the male partner is one example of license taken in these free flowing forms.)

Jill's 14 year career as a medical illustrator was a very different experience of the human body than this exhibit. After completing a Masters degree in anatomy and medical illustration, she worked at the Brain Research Institute and the Department of Anatomy at UCLA. She spent hours in the dissecting lab, and attended surgeries in order to illustrate procedures. The illustrations appeared in medical journals, at scientific conferences, and various atlases of anatomy including Grants Atlas of Anatomy, Clemente's Anatomy (UCLA) and primarily, Gray's Anatomy. The work was static and exacting, mostly rendered in pen and ink, carbon tone, and occasionally in limited colors.

Jill now believes that her artistic life is partly a reaction to the exactness of that work which depicted the body and its structure from skeleton to skin. "I prefer to paint dramatic personalities, lots of motion, color and impressionistic fantasy ideas. I'm having a lot more fun." She hopes you will too.