Artist Reception with Bill Jersey

Please join us for a reception to welcome artist & producer Bill Jersey at Annex, Thursday, August 23rd, 5 - 7PM 

About the artist:

Birthplace: Jamaica, New York
Military Service: U.S. Navy
Education: BFA, Wheaton College
MFA, University of Southern California

For over forty years, Bill Jersey has been known for his provocative documentaries on network and public television. After receiving his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from Wheaton College in Illinois, Bill spent several, mostly unpaid, years learning to be an art director for a fledgling religious film company. Excited by the possibility of making movies, he sought an advanced degree in film from USC, graduating with honors. Following graduation, Bill became the Art Director on the movie classic, The Blob. But instincts, interests and paying jobs wooed him to non-fiction and he soon established his reputation as one of the pioneers of cinema-verité and a major independent producer of works for television.

In 1988, Bill returned to his lifelong love, painting. His inspiration was the landscape of Vermont, most notably the barns dotting the hillsides. Massive, aged and deteriorating, they inspired his continuing quest to document--to capture the confluence of light, form and meaning--this time with brush and oil paint on canvas. Since then, the landscapes of Vermont, Italy, Nova Scotia and California have been his continuing source of inspiration.

Bill Jersey's painting style might be described as contemporary realism. His work is sometimes 'Hopperesque', sometimes more impressionistic, but always evocative of a life lived, a story passed. Every summer since 1988, Mr. Jersey has returned to Vermont to meditate, to rest and to paint. His paintings are shown at the Clarke Galleries in Stowe, Vermont.