Articles
JEANNE MOLES - FLYING COLOURS
When I first spoke to Jeanne Moles I jokingly suggested meeting at her New Forest home so we could conduct the interview outside and enjoy the sunshine - at the time we could barely hear each other over the rumble of thunder!
However under a cloudless sky the following day I found myself sitting in her wonderful garden sipping tea.
‘What a contrast’ she said thoughtfully. ‘When I was at college in Bournemouth I lived in this grotty little room which was about the size of that thing’, Jeanne pointed to a gazebo - way over the other side of the garden. ‘There was a gas ring, a tiny window - a bed, a chair and that was about it!’.
I asked what it was that influenced her in the beginning - ‘I suppose it was the only thing I was any good at’, she said - ‘that and sport!’ - ‘So I went to Art School - Maidstone for about 18 months then on to Bournemouth where I studied to be an Art teacher. In actual fact I taught for half the time and was a student the rest’.
After completing her studies Jeanne worked for a time at what was then a ‘new’ secondary modern school in Bournemouth. Unfortunately as is so often the case her art took a back seat for a time - for she married, had children, then moved to Singapore with her husbands work commitments.
‘I just loved Singapore, we had three years over there, the children were all still very young - five, four, and a few months I think, it was wonderful. A few of us formed an art group. We would go out sketching during the day and when the children were tucked up in bed at night I would get my paints out.
Jeanne’s work still retains the richness of colour influenced by her time in Singapore. Her main love is figurative work - airports, railway stations - pubs - anywhere there are people, and people doing ‘things’ she told me. ‘If I’m somewhere like that I’m just itching to get my sketch pad out’.
She works on a variety of surfaces in mixed media, but most interestingly loves sandpaper. She showed me a piece that had the surface of fine glasspaper, ‘It can make your knuckles bleed if you get too carried away, but I just love the way you can really grind the pastel onto its surface and it takes charcoal wonderfully. It’s also a great way of getting rid of all those tensions’ she laughed.
Jeanne makes use of anything in her studio - snippets of card for linework, the wooden end of her brush, rag dipped in paint - ‘my brushes wear out after three pictures on this surface so I have to be resourceful’.
Jeanne Moles has exhibited widely, and over the years has had shows in London, Paris and of course Singapore. Others include the Pastel society in the Mall, the Royal West of England Academy and has been a keen member of the Lymington Palette Club since - she describes ‘the dawning of time’.
I have to say Jeanne’s work holds a vibrancy many artists would find difficult to balance, and the paintings are a direct descendant of this artists wonderful personality.