Beverley Jane is attracted to ease and grace which shines through in her images of Richmond’s Fan district and the vegetables she paints in her kitchen series. Accustomed to the harsh winters of her home town, Angola, on the shores of Lake Erie in Western New York; she loves the long warm seasons of Virginia in which she can take many calming walks.
The Fan with its charming row houses and luscious gardens is one of her favorite places to wander. During these walks she takes pictures of particularly tranquil porches or doorways and uses the images to make colorful oil paintings. “When I take walks it is very peaceful for me,” she says. “The paintings are just a way for me to spend quiet time int the Fan.” Even though her subjects are fairly limited to a specific geographic area, viewers easily emotionally connect to her work, regardless of geographic origin. “The paintings remind people of any older neighborhood they might find and that’s what resonates with them,” she says.
Beverley Jane also paints vegetables. “The vegetables are my style of Plein Air painting,’”she explains. “They get me back to natural colors and they are very easy to paint because vegetables stay still.” Using a double primary color palette for all of her paintings means that she must mix paints to get other colors like green or brown. Where someone else might find that frustrating, Beverley Jane really enjoys that aspect and the brightness of color that results. ‘It’s relaxing to just mix the paint’” she says.“If I could just mix the paint and not paint I would be happy just doing that.”