Jenny Scheu
I am a printmaker, painter and architect, and I bring all of these skills to my studio work. In college I studied drawing, design and intaglio printing with Bruce Muirhead and David Bumbeck.
I loved the steady work and the studio energy and community. While I studied architecture, I worked at printing and graphic design with Muriel Cooper at the MIT Press studio.
Over forty years ago I moved to a Maine island for a construction job, and have stayed around Casco Bay communities ever since. When I became a licensed Maine Architect, I set up a solo practice focused on small collaborative projects. Design is a most intriguing discipline, and its problem solving and community empowering infuses my work and my world view every day.
Years ago I ramped up my work in watercolor painting and printmaking. I was invited to join the Peregrine Press, and consider it one of my luckiest connections. It is a collective group of thirty talented, serious, generous and spirited artists. The association has given me an opportunity to learn new printmaking techniques from others members here, and and from a wide range of printmakers across the US, in Ireland and in Iceland. My great good fortune as well, is to have found a fine studio in the same Bakery Building which houses the Peregrine print studio. I thrive on the steady work of art practice and the camaraderie of artists, question askers and makers.
Most of my own artwork is abstract and layered. References are textiles, views of our world from every vantage point and from the colors of the natural and built environment. I enjoy color work, the spontaneity of mark making and the layering of transparencies and line on papers of all kinds. While I am always working on some watercolor paintings in my own studio, my printmaking practice upstairs has been focused on colorful monoprints. These are printing ink marks and tones on blank or collagraph textured plates which are then run through the press.
Not unlike my paintings, this printing work is a covering and uncovering process, which is spontaneous and meticulous. The magic is in the combination of transparent and translucent color, and the not always knowing what will emerge from the addition and subtraction of the layers.
Thanks to all for your interest in my work and for steady support for artists everywhere.
N.B. My last name is difficult and is pronounced SHY. In German, the word scheu means shy.
