The Garden by the Sea Jack Saylor

Image © Jack Saylor

About the Artist

Jack Saylor received a BS degree in painting from Barton College in Wilson
North Carolina. Immediately after graduating he traveled to Spain and Italy where he began his pursuits as an artist while also working as a product designer for Sarreid Ltd., a U.S. based home furnishings importer. For the next 10 years this experience allowed Jack to work side by side with artists and artisans in their centuries old studios throughout Spain and Italy. During this time Jack became very knowledgeable in old world studio practices involving numerous art forms utilized in the creation of the objects he was designing particularly in Florence Italy while at the same time continuing to develop and hone his own painting skills. Living in Florence amongst some of the greatest art ever created afforded Jack the opportunity to study intensely the art of Western Europe particularly the Italian Renaissance which remains a source he draws upon today. After settling down and marrying in the U.S., Jack and his wife Ann moved to the coast of their
native state of North Carolina in 1995. The sea, a lifelong passion and constant subject for Jack, would now be his home and would provide a constant feed of inspiration that would inform his work in a way that would not be possible from a distance. Jack and his wife live in the old seaport town of Beaufort, NC whose inlet leads directly out to sea. It is home to many early 18th century houses as well as the 1718 shipwreck believed to be the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship “Queen Anne’s Revenge”. The artwork of Jack Saylor is extensively held in private and corporate collections throughout the country.

For most of my adult life I have lived and painted by the sea, at first because I wanted to and later because I had to. It is my source. As an artist I try to express myself as clearly as I can, while taking myself out of the work and making way for whatever will emerge. I have no interest in presenting some stylistic flourish or flair through brushwork etc. Instead I want to present a crystal clear depiction of the expression I wish to make by way of the craft of painting, not the act of painting. I often approach my subject matter not square-on, but indirectly from an angle of sorts and thus present it in the same manner. I believe that suggesting a subject can be infinitely more powerful than depicting it entirely and it is through this approach that a viewer can be enticed into creating the unseen parts by way of their own experiences and at that point the dimensions of the work become limitless.