Janette Cervin is a contemporary painter. She lives in Warkworth, north of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, with her partner and artistic collaborator Jake Kennedy.

Jan creates beautiful large-scale paintings that offer an invitation to an immersive antipodean paradise teeming with exquisitely detailed New Zealand flora and fauna. 

A unique illusion of depth is created through the combination of traditional painting conventions and applications of thick layers of glossy resin, which is where Jake Kennedy comes in. 

This is a very special chat with Janette and I loved welcoming Jake to the conversation part way through to talk about his involvement in Janette's artistic process. 

Jan and I explore a number of personal life challenges Jan has had and how these have influenced her paintings. We discuss her early successful career in craft and decorative painting which formed the context for her commitment to explore formal art/academic education as an adult student, completing a masters degree in fine art in 2014. Jan shares how her paintings evolve, the the happy accidents that have informed her practice, her folk art inspired painting techniques and the different brushes she uses for different parts of the flowers and how she creates the incredible depth and layering in her paintings.

It was beautiful to see the formidable team that is Jake and Jan together and inspiring to see the obvious love and respect they have for each other. We talk about their shared goals, the way they work together, how they compliment each other and how they both contribute to their art practice and process. Jake goes into detail about his part of the resin process: experimenting with colour, using pigments and dyes with resin, 2 pot polyester resin application, his process of layering, sanding between layers and reusing and reconstructing old paintings.

This is the most gorgeous chat with 2 lovely NZers, I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

Creativity Found
Inspirational chats with people who found – or re-found – their creativity as adults

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