Fabienne Jenny Jacquet is a British painter born in France and based in London. While studying fine art at Central Saint Martins College she started to develop her unique practice. Her work is now part of private and public collections all over the world and this year she completed her first residency abroad with the  CloverMill artist residency programme in the Netherlands. 

Greatest Inspirations and influences?

When I started to paint it was really about finding an outlet to explore my feelings and try to make  sense of my life. As an introvert I have always struggled with verbal communication but I found that  a visual medium was helping me find my voice and gave me more self-confidence. I wanted the  work not to be too obviously autobiographical though and retain a sense of mystery so I added to  the mix references to popular culture (music, literature, cartoons and films).  

The story-telling in my work is about combining humour with more surreal and dark undertones. I  started creating strange worlds in my head when I was a kid and I just carried on with this as a  painter: I don’t really paint what I see but more what I feel and imagine.  

My work is influenced by the basic physicality of paint and the act of painting itself too. I use  textures, thick layers, instinctive and rapidly drawn lines, drips, loose outlines and what I call  ‘’happy accidents’’ and let the paint ‘’talk’’ rather then work from very detailed sketches.  

As an art student I became attracted to the works of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Auguste Rodin,  Marlene Dumas, Diane Arbus, Tracey Emin and Walter Sickert and David Shrigley. But I can be  equally inspired by vintage magazines, a comic book, a song or a picture I see on instagram. 

Current trend and technology and its effect in your work.

I only really got interest in and positive feedback on my work from collectors and galleries when I  really started to develop a presence on social media and on online galleries like Saatchi Art.  

Although I went to Saint Martins, I left with no contacts in the art world and no idea of what I was going to do next. My degree show was pretty  much a complete disaster and everyone hated or did not get my work. I constantly had some  of the worst grades in my year due to my cartoony style and ‘’difficult’’ personality (the group grit  ritual is not a friend of the introverted artist…) and I never really connected with many other artists in that time.  

By developing an online presence I managed to connect with a new community of artists and art lovers and got my work seen across the world, so for me technology has been a life saver.  

Tell us about your creative process: 

I tend to work on several paintings simultaneously: I use a lot of textures and layers and I need to  leave the work time to dry and fleeting from one painting to the next also keeps the work more  organic and instinctive.  

I do sometimes make loose sketches to work from but equally I also often just start straight on the  canvas without too much planning. Very often an image will just pop up in my mind out of the blue  and that is it! I replicate it really quickly on the canvas. Those are usually the ones that I end up  liking the most. 

Lately I have found that I prefer working on loose canvas or oil paper rather than stretched canvas.  I am a messy painter and I tend to hit the surface quite hard with the brush so if you use something  that is already stretched then the tension becomes an issue and it takes away some of the power.  

I have also started to share on social media more and more shots or videos of work in progress rather  than only showing pristine, finished work because I am never interested in perfection and I like  sharing the reality and the struggle of developing a piece of work.  

I always listen to music when I paint. It helps put me in the right mood and keeps me going and I also realized that now and then I need to take time out from just painting and spend time visiting shows, museums and just living and having new experiences so that I have time to recharge and go back to work refreshed.  

Your opinion on the “art world “ as we know it.

I really despise nepotism and industries that work to a large extent based on the ‘’it is about who  you know’’ principle and unfortunately a lot of the art world is still like that.  

When I was at art college it was very obvious that only a certain demographic could afford to study  art and dedicate themselves to it full time. I was a mature student when I went to Saint Martins. I  still had to work and picked a degree that could be done part-time over a longer period of time. But  then I got a lot of criticism for having a job in my final year and not being able to be in the studio  everyday which I thought was nonsensical.  

Thankfully these days artists are just bypassing the old gallery system by organizing their own  shows and using social media to share their work and communicate directly with the people who  like and want to collect their work. But I think there is a lot more to do in terms of supporting diversity in the arts. I want to believe that it is getting better but in some ways it is still the realm of the  straight white male when it comes to artists, collectors and gallerists.  

My art heroes are people like the American art critic Jerry Saltz who was a truck driver and became  an art critic in his 40s. He has such a unique voice and constantly interacts with other people on social media in a very informal way, uses clear language rather than art jargon and he does not  pull his punches about the art world.  

I have learned not to worry too much about what other people think or compare myself to other  artists. I just follow my own artistic path and it is great that some people seem to like what I do. I  never worry about what is trendy that week, how to be cool or what rules I should follow…I just do  my thing.  

What does wellbeing mean to you?

That’s something that has become much more important to me in the past 10 years or so. I had a  lot of health issues and surgeries due to long term health conditions, including endometriosis and  for about a year I spent an awful lot of time in my local A&E department!. So I made some radical  changes to try to change my routine. I became vegetarian which really fitted in my passion for animal welfare issues. I started using meditation as well during the first Covid lockdown to also help me cope better with chronic pain, just listening to YouTube guided meditation stuff everyday. I  have openly mentioned in the past (as it sometimes crops up in my artwork) that I had therapy for trauma including EMDR and that had a really positive impact on my life and well-being. I am really  into swimming and horse-riding these days and my long term plan is to leave London for  somewhere much more rural and quiet where I can have more animals with me and also a much  bigger space to paint.  

• @fabiennejennyjacquet

• www.fabiennejennyjacquet.com