Jeanette N. Marshall grew up on Deer Valley Farm near Russell in northwestern Manitoba. It is an oddity for a prairie farm girl to become a professional artist, as art in rural Canadian society is often viewed as a luxury rather than livelihood activity. At fifteen, she attended the Peace Gardens Music Camp on the Manitoba/North Dakota border, designed for young musicians and artists alike. Two years later, she enrolled in the University of Manitoba on a scholarship. In the School of Art, she quickly gravitated to studies with the acclaimed landscape and symbolist artist, Ivan Eyre.There she determined to turn her passion for painting into her profession.She earned academic recognition, awards and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours degree before leaving Winnipeg in 1974. Thereafter she lived in Montreal, Vancouver and Windsor while she pursued independent studies, held numerous exhibitions and taught a variety of art courses to students of all ages. In 2002, she established West Wind Studio, and in 2012, relocated to London, Ontario.

Jeanette gained exposure to historical collections and international standards through travels in North America, Great Britain, Holland and Germany. In 1980, she viewed an exhibition of the 19th century Russian Realist masters from the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Since then, her work has been strongly influenced by Ivan Shishkin (1832-98) and Ivan N. Kramskoy (1837-87). Her German Lutheran and Mennonite ancestors lived in neighbouring White Russia, now Poland and the Ukraine, at the time these artists were active.  A century later, this body of work inspired her. The heightened sensibilities that these works contained gave her the desire to portray emotional depth with subtle grace and mastery. Further historical influences have been the German Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) for his plein air vibrancy, and the early Canadian Impressionists, Maurice Cullen (1866-1934), Mark-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869-1937) and Clarence Gagnon (1881-1942).

Jeanette works in oil, watercolor, chalk pastel and graphite pencil. Her subject matter is drawn from nature and humanity. Her images often encompass extremes: the real and the imaginary, the commonplace and the sacred, the particular and the universal, high realism and abstraction. She uses the term, Mystical Realism, to convey this juxtaposition of dualisms in her art.

To inquire about available artwork, exhibitions or commissions, contact Jeanette at westwind_studio@hotmail.com.