Jean Cherouny

Jean Cherouny studied at the University of Vermont for a BS in Art Education, where she was also a competitive skier. She earned her MFA from Northern Vermont University in 2010.  She has shown her work in juried and commercial shows in Los Angeles at The Other Art Fair, Italy, Czech Republic, Philippines, NYC, Connecticut, Texas, Vermont USA as well as in online shows and magazines. She now lives and shows her work in Aruba.

Moving and making have interested Jean for decades. When she entered grade school, she was a ballet dancer and had a love for knitting. Early, her kinesthetic awareness made her curious about how her eye, mind and body bring paint and sport together to create her art.  In college, where she created large paintings of futuristic bike racers, she found her visual expression in color and form while competing internationally.  She transformed her painting process as a result of needing movement to inspire her creations in paint.

In graduate school an injury made her reconsider what it meant for her to paint authentically. She woke up one day and invented rollerblade painting in her garage.   

Jean says that, “ While using my rollerblades to play with colors, I feel connected  with wheels as a source of not only transportation but creativity. Gestural movements bring an awareness to my body's confidence and use of color texture, form and line in my paintings.” 

Cherouny’s large-scale rollerblade paintings, first executed in 2008, as well as smaller scale “wheel work,” all go beyond the brush and extend into my identity as an athlete using transportation as a source of inspiration. Her paintings are brightly colored, visually dynamic, planes that relate to a series of emotional phases induced by painting with speed and energy using the wheel as her body's paint brush. Jean’s painting practice transcends technical innovation giving a unique texture to the forms she creates as they speak to a new dimension of human nature and visual art.