About Me

My first foray into painting was as a young teenager in Northern Ontario, Canada.  I took an oil painting class from a German landscape painter who was visiting our town one winter.  Following that brief exposure in the 70s, I did not start painting again until 2006 when I returned after many years abroad in Singapore.  Circumstance and location gave me a small taste of painting, and I was hooked. I took my first acrylic class with Martha Johnson at the Avenue Road Art School, Toronto, Canada.  She is an incredible instructor who was very motivating and encouraged experimentation and expanding ones artistic outlook.  Throughout my stay in Canada, I continued painting with Martha and also studied representational painting with Linda Kooluris Dobbs.   I also studied at the Toronto School of Art where I was introduced to encaustic painting by Mona Shahid.

In 2008, I moved to London with my family, and joined the continuing studies program at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art in Chelsea.  I switched from painting with acrylics to oils. I have had excellent instruction from artists, Ian Rowlands and Allan Ramsay.

In Summer 2009, I returned to Toronto and studied with Klaas Hart, a contemporary representational painter, whose work I have admired for many years.

In the UK, I have exhibited in a number of shows.  I have been a regular exhibitor with Surface ICA showing frequently at The Barossa, plus also The Reading Contemporary Art Fair, Bell Amie, Katie & Jo’s.  I also show with Neal’s Yard Galleries in Chester and Richmond, the Fulham Society of Painters, at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, at The Chelsea Society of Painters Exhibition.

I paint because I love to.  It is not grounded in any complicated philosophy.  I see a blank canvas and am very excited to transform it.    I love most forms of painting.  I am totally taken with the 17th Century Dutch masters and current contemporary representational painters with their exacting precision of detail, the feeling of space, the importance and reverence given to everyday objects.  Equally I am a huge fan of abstract expressionism with its broad brushstrokes and spontaneous mark-making. 

Why I Paint

Copyright © 2009-2017  Jennifer Tai.  All rights reserved.

Contact Details: 

    +44 (0)785-063-7079 or jennifertai3@gmail.com