The work of contemporary artist Georganna Lenssen looks to the natural world as a muse then steps into a realm so unique it cannot be bound by the representational. Filled with vitality and complexity, her paintings invite engagement and interaction with the viewer. While constantly referencing nature, she creates images which are ambiguous, sensual and evocative. Paintings which invite connection on a deeply personal and individualistic emotional level.
While her subject matter varies widely, including urban scenes, waterscapes, desserts, and animals, it is unified by a painterly richness of technique. She uses her subject as a point of departure, a vessel providing unique suggestive characteristics which she can transpose into color, marks and a landscape of painted surface. Treatment of the paint is her vocabulary. Transparency and translucency both foil and complement areas of opacity and impasto. A variety of bold painterly strokes and areas of delicately applied paint, created with brush, palette knife, rag or cardboard merge to create a symphony of expression. Restlessness and a quest to push boundaries set the stage for paintings which are constantly evolving and morphing—sometimes even as they hang upon a gallery wall.
Georganna’s style of working is best described as phenomenological. It facilitates results both surprising and unpredictable. She continually challenges herself by putting herself in uncomfortable, unfamiliar territory and by pushing her boundaries. Randomly choosing colors when beginning a piece combined with an intentional lack of order on her palette, she remains keenly receptive to the freshness of surprising results . She varies her surface choices, sizes and proportions. Mostly using canvas, board and paper, sizes range from 4 by 6 inches to 4 by six feet. She often works a painting for weeks only to turn it 180 degrees to finish it. She interacts with the painting, adding and subtracting, until the image begins to emerge. If an image becomes too articulated, she deconstructs it, creating chaos so she may create a different kind of organization. Scraping down entire works, or painting over previous paintings, increases the depth and complexity of the painting’s story. Georganna Lenssen’s painting journey is engaging and intense - the result is unanticipated and surprising. Her work stands out for its intensity, mood, and the complexity of its painted surface.
“Painting is my life and my passion. It is through paint that I process my world.”
Originally from Seoul, Korea, Georganna graduated from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Villanova University.
She has shown most recently with J. Cacciola gallery in Bernardsville, NJ. renowned for contemporary art.
An avid plein air painter, when not outdoors working, she paints from her studio in Historic Yellow Springs.
Georganna lives in Honey Brook, PA with her husband, her cats and her German Shepherd.
While her subject matter varies widely, including urban scenes, waterscapes, desserts, and animals, it is unified by a painterly richness of technique. She uses her subject as a point of departure, a vessel providing unique suggestive characteristics which she can transpose into color, marks and a landscape of painted surface. Treatment of the paint is her vocabulary. Transparency and translucency both foil and complement areas of opacity and impasto. A variety of bold painterly strokes and areas of delicately applied paint, created with brush, palette knife, rag or cardboard merge to create a symphony of expression. Restlessness and a quest to push boundaries set the stage for paintings which are constantly evolving and morphing—sometimes even as they hang upon a gallery wall.
Georganna’s style of working is best described as phenomenological. It facilitates results both surprising and unpredictable. She continually challenges herself by putting herself in uncomfortable, unfamiliar territory and by pushing her boundaries. Randomly choosing colors when beginning a piece combined with an intentional lack of order on her palette, she remains keenly receptive to the freshness of surprising results . She varies her surface choices, sizes and proportions. Mostly using canvas, board and paper, sizes range from 4 by 6 inches to 4 by six feet. She often works a painting for weeks only to turn it 180 degrees to finish it. She interacts with the painting, adding and subtracting, until the image begins to emerge. If an image becomes too articulated, she deconstructs it, creating chaos so she may create a different kind of organization. Scraping down entire works, or painting over previous paintings, increases the depth and complexity of the painting’s story. Georganna Lenssen’s painting journey is engaging and intense - the result is unanticipated and surprising. Her work stands out for its intensity, mood, and the complexity of its painted surface.
“Painting is my life and my passion. It is through paint that I process my world.”
Originally from Seoul, Korea, Georganna graduated from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Villanova University.
She has shown most recently with J. Cacciola gallery in Bernardsville, NJ. renowned for contemporary art.
An avid plein air painter, when not outdoors working, she paints from her studio in Historic Yellow Springs.
Georganna lives in Honey Brook, PA with her husband, her cats and her German Shepherd.
Artist Statement
My work is the culmination of response, absorption and interpretation of place or content. A thread of commonality exists—from exquisitely patterned African wild dogs to densely sensual frosted cakes to the evocative nature of abandoned structures and the secrets within—the multi-faceted richness of imagery. Opacities, transparencies and iridescences offer a myriad of painterly opportunities. Here is where instinct, memory and sensation merge for me, creating a visual language of mark-making, color interaction and finally the landscape of the painted surface.