Jenny Christiansen
Jenny Christiansen lives in the Utah desert outside of Zion National Park with her husband, painter Mike “Ryno” Ryan. Together they travel throughout the West, creating visual journals of their time spent in wild places.
Jenny has always loved making things with her hands. She draws inspiration from time spent in nature and the shapes, forms and colors found there inform her work. In her capable hands a strand of wire and a few bright beads can become a vibrant poppy or a petite daisy. Delicate, feminine and yet surprisingly sturdy, like the wild things that inspired it, her jewelry is equally at home with a little black dress or t-shirt and jeans.
For Jenny, the jump from jewelry to painting was a natural one, as it simply expanded her canvas size and loosened her style. Her paintings are up close and personal, putting viewers face to face with luscious blossoms and greenery. Working with oil pastel and acrylic paint on birch wood panels, Jenny lays down vivid layers of thick and thin pigment. She creates stylized bouquets of color that are exuberant and playful snapshots of nature's abundance.
Whether crafted in metal or paint, Jenny’s work is a tribute to the wild beauty of the natural world she loves.
