JILL HACKETT

Pastel Artist

The Color of Light:  Journeys in Pastel by Jill Hackett


While an artist can never improve on nature, Jill Hackett’s Journeys in Pastel, currently on display through March 19th at The Canyon Theatre Guild in Newhall, captures the natural imagery of the world around us with the soft intensity that pastel offers and transforms it into a more intuitive realm. 

With the attentive artistry of Shadows on Snow, the ordinary experience of a lagging winter day softens its focus, creating a visceral response to the icy blueness stretching across the snow -- the Yin to the Yang of the trees -- and from some old remembered place, I can see my breath and feel the biting cold on my cheeks as I take it all in.  This is what art is meant to do.

Steps at Malibu Creek is another fine example of the artist’s keen eye for composition and instinctive understanding of light.  Observation is an art and her discerning eye lifts the detail of the steps from the gauzy softness of the surrounding landscape by a focal point of light streaming from the top of them.  I am invited in and led right up to it.

These days the artist is ready to point out that her more recent work is indicative of a push into new territory.  Caught in a Downpour  is an example of this new direction that points toward a more urban landscape full of life and movement.  This pastel pulls light from the color red while still managing to personalize the wildness of a pounding rainstorm on a crowded sidewalk.  While a sea of umbrellas intimates many people huddled below them, deftly, the rain is still the headliner here.  The percussion of raindrops and even the smell of a summer storm are all part of what makes this painting sing.

As all artists evolve and grow differently, this one brings her own distinctive and identifiable style to her work that will likely bring a smile of recognition to those familiar with the Pine Mountain Club area and beyond.  It is exciting to have a local artist capturing the surrounding landscape with such an artistic affection for it.  For that reason alone, I would encourage anyone who truly appreciates how art can breathe new life into the way we see things, to make the effort to catch a very noteworthy collection by this earnest, award-winning artist.

D. Cheselka
Los Angeles