Jeremy Herndl was born in Vancouver, BC in 1972 and currently lives in Victoria, BC. He earned his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art in Design in 1996 and his MAA in Painting at Emily Carr University in 2011. In 1995 he participated in an exchange study at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France.

Jeremy has received grants from Canada Council, BC Arts Council and three Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants. He has been artist in residence at the Banff Centre, the 2015 Brucebo Residency recipient, Tombstone Territorial Park AiR in the Yukon, the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, Eden Grove AiR, The Empire of Dirt in Creston, BC and the Pouch Cove residency in Pouch Cove, NL.

His work has been exhibited at Michael Gibson Gallery, Equinox Gallery, the Surrey Art Centre, Open Space Art Society, Two Rivers Gallery, and The University of Victoria, Legacy Gallery among others. His work is in collections including the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Surrey Art Centre, The University of Victoria, the Brucebo Foundation, Sweden, The City of Surrey, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, corporate and private collections in Canada, USA and Europe.

Jeremy has been teaching since 2012 with appointments including the Vancouver Island School of Art, University of Victoria, Yukon School of Visual Art (Yukon University) and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He has been teaching painting workshops since 2012 and is a returning instructor at Hollyhock Leadership Learning Centre.

NATURE PAINTS ITSELF

Painting for me is a tool for experiencing a place. The land shapes people, but people also shape the land. Painting is a medium at the intersection of place and painter and these are understood to be mutually defining. This reciprocal relationship between individual and environment embraces the shifting appearances and interactions that occur over days and weeks.

My research centres around intersubjectivity and the reciprocity of perception, ecology and the intelligence of natural processes and this informs my contemporary approach to pleinairism. While this is a personal and mediative practice, it is not authorial. It aims to be a witness to the agency of place in these times of ecological trouble.

In my practice, I am witness to the politics and legacies of the land: the ravages of colonialism, property and privilege, industry and gentrification. My landscape painting are always about people, whether overtly in the subject matter (urban, rewilded, still life) or endangered forests and ecosystems in transition.

Portrait photos by Carla Unger