I’m a painter and designer living in Toronto. I was born in Mainz, Germany, to German and Brazilian parents, and then grew up close to the Canadian Rocky mountains. I studied Fashion Communication in Toronto, and did a semester in fashion magazines at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. Now I divide my time between creative direction and painting.

Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences? 

I have a few highly visual films I come back to over and over again. Sissi with Romy Schneider has been a favourite since childhood. I also love The Witches of Eastwick and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, I’ll put these on when I need to feel inspired. They’re all so lush and opulent.

For artists, I love Marc Chagall. There’s a cathedral in the city I was born in with stained glass windows by Chagall that I always go look at when I’m there. His paintings are so emotive and tender. He reminds not to get so caught up in perspective and seriousness, that a painting can be joyful.

Tell us a bit about your creative process? 

It took me almost a whole year to develop my creative process, where I now feel much closer to who I want to be as a painter. I think of it a bit like a funnel that narrows as you go on, you get more focused as you move closer and closer, but when you’re at the top you’re trying everything to see what feels right. 

For a long time I was playing with collaging reference images in Photoshop and working from that. Then I started working very intuitively from imagination on a smaller scale, and that gave me the confidence to try larger paintings. Now I draw quick little thumbnails of a composition, and I might do a few of those to adjust framing, and then I move onto the canvas. I loved that element of intuition when I was doing the smaller works, so I try to keep some of that by making the sketches very fast and loose, and then making decisions about colour as I’m painting. 

My work is very much a therapy for me: it’s how I try to understand myself and my life, so I often paint self portraits and objects or moments from real life that relate to something I’m processing. 

How has the pandemic affected your creativity? 

The year of lockdowns meant painting became my central focus. Instead of seeing friends and going out for dinners and travelling, I was at home in my studio, painting. I felt I could experiment more, which led to some important breakthrough moments. All that time at home was very insular, but I came to know myself very well. I started to trust myself more.

It’s also been a very dark period. We are all exhausted. The news progressively gets worse. It’s hard to feel optimistic about the state of the world, but I see so many people fighting for important, necessary changes, and it gives me some hope. There is so much power in collective action.

Who do you consider to be an icon of our time? 

Joni Mitchell is my forever icon.

What does wellbeing mean to you, and what do you practice? 

Wellbeing means making space for my art practice and protecting that time. It’s long walks through the city with my partner, beautiful meals with friends, saying yes, mending instead of discarding. 

Anything else you would like to share? 

My first solo exhibition, August and Other Stories, is running (virtually) from August 18 - September 18 with Artistellar. The show is about memory and remembering, cataloguing memories of my early twenties while also contending with how memory fails us.

jeaninebrito.com / ig

Portrait of the artist by Amy McNell