Artist In Focus at Rosenstiels

My artwork was recently featured by Rosenstiels, a London-based leader in the world of fine art prints. This blog post is a duplicate of my interview there and of the promotional video Rosenstiels made for their prints of my artwork. Enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/1163654393

Jennifer L Mohr (she/her) approaches landscape as something built, not simply observed. Based in Airdrie, Alberta, and working within Treaty 7 territory, she constructs her Prairie scenes from memory, reworking childhood experiences of meadow and light into imagined environments shaped by feeling rather than geography. 

A graduate of the University of Saskatchewan, Mohr works primarily in acrylic and mixed media, developing her paintings through layered, expressive mark-making. Her perspective is grounded and immersive: grasses, wildflowers and shifting colour are brought close to the picture plane, creating dense surfaces that hold the viewer within the field rather than offering a distant horizon. 

Colour is central to the work. Muted greens, softened florals and subtle shifts of light create cohesion across the canvas, balancing richness with control. Her process is exploratory but disciplined, allowing each painting to unfold spontaneously while maintaining structural clarity. 

Mohr’s work has been collected across Canada and the United States, reflecting growing recognition of her distinctive voice within contemporary landscape painting. Rooted in the Prairie yet open in interpretation, her imagined meadows bring warmth, depth, and a sense of quiet focus to interior spaces. These are landscapes shaped by memory and resolved through paint – immersive works that hold attention rather than demand it.

What are your two biggest inspirations?

"My biggest inspirations for my paintings come from my time spent in nature.  Specifically in early childhood when I spent a lot of time wandering around the farm in rural Saskatchewan where I grew up and more recently in the stewarding of a piece of native prairie in Alberta where I now live."

What are the main themes behind your work?

"Behind the wild and weedy meadow landscape imagery there are deeper themes to my work.  The meadows represent a tangle of introspection - a safe place to stop and look within, notice the beauty amidst the chaos and feel grounded in our authenticity and belonging."

What is your creative process?  How do you begin a new piece of work?

"I begin my process with lots of preparatory work; building and priming canvases, photographing and choosing reference materials and drawing in sketchbooks to explore visual language and colours.  Once I begin the actual paintings, they evolve in an intuitive way and are not pre-planned.  In the process of painting I draw inspiration from multiple reference photos and sketches resulting in a finished work that does not represent any one particular place."

How do you know when a piece of art is finished?

"In completing a painting I am searching for a sense of balance and peace within the composition.  Since I am not copying a reference photo, I must look to the painting itself for clues about what it needs in order to be finished.  Usually those final marks on a piece are restrained and subtle but can make a big difference to the overall finished look and feeling."

What is a piece of advice you have been given that has stayed with you?

"I have heard lots of great advice from other artists over the years but recently I have been appreciating a bit of my own advice in the form of a personal affirmation: it is in the doing that we find a way in to creative flow and discovery.  Plan less, work more.  This has resulted in the evolution of my creative work in a very authentic way and has allowed me to be prolific and joyful in the way that I paint."

What has been one of the biggest learning curves you have experienced?

"Going back to my answer above, I think it has been an important thing for me to learn that a painting will have it’s own journey, both in the process of creation and later, out in the world beyond my studio.  I needn’t try to force that painting into being anything but what it was meant to be.  I am here to mix the paint, hold the paintbrush and learn from the process of creation.  The final paintings are not for me, they are for others and they have lives of their own once I am finished with them!  Achieving this mindset has allowed me a lot of freedom in my creative practice and comfort in my role and abilities as an artist."

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