Poetry of a New Friend, 48×48, oil on canvas
December 2018 – June 2019
Jeff McNutt was born in Iowa in 1967 and began his artistic pursuits in 1989 while working for The Walt Disney Company. In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles and continued his art education in animation houses across Hollywood, with street artists in LA, and also at Cal Arts in Valencia, CA. In 1993, Jeff moved back to Iowa to study graduate painting at The University of Iowa where he started to merge the ideas of animation, street art, and the beauty of nature.
“The content of my work is inspired by a desire to communicate a sense of life and presence. I want my artwork to evoke ideas about creation through an engaged use of color, energy and movement.
I begin by observing landscape from all over the Midwest. I am visually inspired by the streets of Chicago, the lush green hills of Wisconsin, and Iowa’s rich landscape where Grant Wood once painted and called home. It is rich in color, spiritual and natural.
I apply and remove oil paint, oil stick, and spray paint until the painting begins to develop a history like distressed art on old brick buildings. Many of the marks on the canvas are inspired by animation sketches, adding a sense of movement and life in the work.
I believe in the spiritual nature of the creative act, and I invite the Holy Spirit into my time in the studio. I want the work to evoke a feeling of beauty, soul, and energy, and to affect a space with a sense of God’s love.”
All work is oil on canvas
Click thumbnails to view full-sized images of the exhibition.
Coloratura, 48×48 
Fall, 48×48 
Meadows, 48×48 
Poetry of a New Friend, 48×48 
Papaya, 48×48 
