Jillian Lum

“I have been drawing for as long as I can remember — there is something deeply meditative about it. As a child, my siblings and I spent hours coloring, finding comfort in a fresh box of Crayolas and a new coloring book. The attention to detail, the selection of colors, the movement of my hand — when my mind was flooded with unwelcome noise, drawing had a way of turning down the volume.

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It wasn’t until college that I picked up painting. I stumbled into an Oil Painting 101 class taught by the driest, quirkiest professor — he had a way of teaching without really teaching at all. And I was hooked—probably more hooked to the comfort of being in his studio than the actual painting. A refuge.

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Unlike the calm I find putting pencil to paper or crayon to coloring book, oil painting offers something different. It is rich, active, and demands a push and pull unlike anything else I’ve tried. Mixing pigments and mediums, finding the right timing between wet and dry — it all feels like a conversation.  Sometimes it’s light and effortless; other times, it’s heavy and unresolved. Some paintings come together quickly, while others linger for weeks, waiting for the right moment to speak again.

 

 

There was a long stretch of time when the noise got so loud and so demanding that I couldn’t bring myself to draw or paint — conversations in real life and on paper or canvas felt like just one more thing the world wanted from me. And then, a few years ago, something gave way — a few things, actually — and with that, I found myself digging through the attic for my dusty paintbrushes and old tubes of paint. I picked up a painting I’d done a decade before and just started repainting her — right over the top with a different color palette. I painted her, one version over the other, several times before I felt like we’d finally caught up and I could move on to a new conversation.

 

 

And that’s where I am now — picking up conversations with these ladies. And with every conversation, I feel like I have a little more to give — finding pieces of me I forgot about or hadn’t yet met.”