Jenness Cortez, Art of the West, No Restrictions, September-October 2014

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September/October 2014

www.aotw.com

For All Fine Art Collectors

Jenness Cortez

No Restrictions

By Sara Gilbert Frederick

J

enness Cortez had several ideas in mind when she started planning her recent painting titled Conversations with a Cowboy. She knew she would build the composition around Frederic Remington’s painting Stampede by Lightning and that she wanted to include photographs of real cowboys with it. She also had a Charles Russell painting in mind to include, along a bronze sculpture titled Buckaroo.

But, as Cortez started working on thumbnail sketches of those elements, other ideas started popping up: a box of rifle shells; a bullet—the kind that would have been used in a Colt 45; a set of dice and a pile of poker chips; an antique label from a package of smoking tobacco; and a small photograph of Lily Langtry, an actress from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“I had an idea of what would work, but then came all of these other items, too,” Cortez says. “All of those were part of a cowboy’s life. A cowboy could tell a story about any of them.”

That is how it often goes for Cortez, who has become well known over the past decade for painting art within her art. She starts with a recognizable painting by a well-known artist, then The Glorious Cause, acrylic, 30˝ by 36˝ creates a still-life composition of related items around it and places it “The imagery of this painting rejoices in the ongoing, in a cozy sitting room or study. She often has several ideas of what noble, and very American heroism of humanity’s struggle to incorporate, but she knows that other items will spring to mind, as to experience freedom.”

ART of the WEST • September/October 2014

The Color of Night, acrylic, 24˝ by 18˝ “This is a tribute to Frederic Remington’s nocturnes that explored the mysteries and drama of night.”

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well. “The real fun comes when all of these other ideas start suggesting themselves to me,” she says.

The idea for Cortez’s unique style of painting suggested itself in much the same way. She started her career as an illustrator and etcher, then made a name for herself painting highly detailed portraits of thoroughbred racehorses for 20 years.

By 1996, however, Cortz was ready to try something new.

“The thoroughbred racing community requires absolute adherence to every little detail,” she says.

“I enjoyed that, but I began to feel constricted.”

In her quest for a new challenge, Cortez tried several subjects. When she started painting streetscapes, with detailed depictions of buildings, things started to click. “I found that the best received paintings were the ones with art galleries in them, where you could see the art in the windows,” she says. “People really responded to those pieces in particular.”

That realization precipitated Cortez’

shift in 2003 to interiors and still lifes that featured iconic artwork.

In the decade since, she’s used her paintings to pay homage to such masters as Johannes Vermeer, John Singer Sargent, John Trumbull, and Andrew Wyeth. She’s also created tributes to groups of artists, including Impressionists Georges Seurat, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Gauguin.

For the past couple of years, however, Cortez has focused her efforts on Western works. Her recent paintings have included works by renowned Western artists such as Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, and Albert Bierstadt. “I had often done Western art, but it had never been my focus, the predominant part of the image, before now,” she says. “Now, I’m turning to Western more and more as my exclusive subject.”

Actually, the first two paintings Cortez ever sold were Western. One was a horse in Western gear, the other a rearing mustang. Noticing the drawings 12-year-old Cortez

ART of the WEST • September/October 2014

Native Voices, acrylic, 30˝ by 40˝ “To be of value, the visual conversation initiated by my paintings must have some significant meaning. And that meaning must be communicated clearly and understood by the viewer. In this painting, I am presenting—for the viewer’s contemplation—the integrity, diversity, and beauty of American Indian traditions.”

made on papers and notebooks, her sixth grade English teacher commissioned her to create the two paintings.

“She made me an offer,” Cortez says. “She told me that she wanted to buy two small paintings of anything I wanted to paint, and she would pay me $5. She paid me in five silver dollars, which was really a beautiful gesture on her part. I kept those silver dollars for quite a long time. They really meant something to me.”

More than anything, those silver coins helped show Cortez the value of her artistic talent. She kept painting, mostly horses and other animals, and invested in private lessons, as well. As a teenager, she studied under Antonius Raemakers,

Native American Medicine, acrylic, 30˝ by 24˝ “Facilitating connections between the material and the spirit worlds was an essential aspect of survival for all American Indian cultures.”

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Vanished Reality, acrylic, 15˝ by 20˝ “The scout, like a shaman, sees into the future— where his world and way of life have become only memories.”

a Dutch painter, who had a profound influence on her. After high school, she studied at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, then moved to New York to study at the Art Students League.

When she had completed her schooling, Cortez settled in upstate New York, where she and her husband Leonard Perlmutter, a writer who also teaches meditation, still live today. Her new home was not far from the Saratoga racetrack, a 150-year-old course famous for its thoroughbred races. That proximity gave Cortez the opportunity to reconnect with her first artistic love: horses. “I loved horses as a kid,” she says. “I always did, and I still do.”

Between 1977 and 1996, Cortez completed hundreds of paintings of horses—portraits, race scenes, and more. She loved the work and

found great success doing it. But the demand for detailed accuracy eventually felt too restrictive.

Cortez doesn’t feel the same constraints now, even when she is replicating a well-known work of art. Her goal is never to duplicate it down to the last detail; often, she has to make changes to fit her composition.

Some are much smaller than the original, some larger, but she always represents the spirit of the original work in her paintings.

“I do take liberties,” Cortez says.

“These are not exact copies, and they aren’t meant to be. I make them work in my composition, but they are still recognizable.”

Cortez has a few goals in mind with each painting she creates. First, she wants to pay homage to the artist she is representing in her art. She wants to celebrate a piece of work that is exciting or interesting and to honor the artist who created it.

“I’m very fond of artists,” she says.

“I have a lot of respect for them.

They have been so important to me.

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I respect how they have defined our idea of who we are.”

The pioneering Western artists, for example, helped define not only the West but also the image of America, Cortez says. “That’s especially true of Frederic Remington,” she adds. “He pretty much invented the image of the American cowboy.

You can certainly say that some of it is glorified or romanticized, but his art has given us an image of the West.”

As she honors that artistic contribution, however, Cortez also wants to start a conversation with those who view her artwork. She wants to give them a feeling for the social and cultural context the artist was working in and to help them see the work the same way that viewers of that particular era might have seen it.

“Many were perceived quite differently than they are now,” she explains. “We have a different context for them now.”

The process of researching her subjects and the elements within her

Conversations With a Cowboy, acrylic, 30˝ by 40˝ “Like all of my paintings, this one is meant to start a three-way conversation that includes the viewer, the subject matter, and the artist.”

paintings often provides Cortez with a better historical context for them, as well. “I always learn quite a bit,” she says.

Earlier this summer, for example, she was working on a painting that brings together objects representing several groups of American Indians. Her research revealed that Whitehorse, one of the men pictured in a photograph she used, was an artist himself who, while in captivity, had painted a self-portrait of himself going to war. She became fascinated by his story and learned as much she could about him. “I feel like I know the guy,” she says.

Cortez hopes that viewers are able to get a flavor of those stories when they look at her work. She wants them to feel like they can step inside the painting and become part of the story taking shape there. “The stories are very important to me,” she says. “These paintings are my way of storytelling.”

And that leads to Cortez’s ultimate goal: communication. She wants her paintings to share a message that goes beyond just the details of the setting and the intricacies of the objects included. “I’m most interested in communicating with these,” she says. “It’s not just art for art’s sake.”

Sara Gilbert Frederick is a writer living in Mankato, Minnesota.

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