Depicting the the rocky intertidal environment of the Southern California coast from the relatively pristine view of California’s eight Channel Islands, this exhibition of selected work from four series’ created during Jenkin’s 13 years spent in the Channel Islands calls attention to what is at stake as our climate changes at an increasingly rapid rate.

“In 2005, I was selected, along with approximately 20 other artists from Ventura and Santa Barbara, to spend a year visiting the Channel Islands and making artwork to be exhibited by the Ventura County Museum upon the 25th anniversary of Channel Islands National Park. I was hooked, and I continued to visit over the next 13 years as a volunteer with the Intertidal Monitoring Survey team, the park’s Natural Resources Specialist, and with Channel Island Restoration—until the pandemic grounded us all. I was privileged to stay at and to explore all eight of the Channel Islands, making more than two dozen paintings. My time there–freezing wet, knee deep in tidepools or picking weeds from wee pots of dudleyas, and planting out oak seedlings in 35 mph winds–was the experience of a lifetime. The chance to sit and observe day after day in that isolated environment, largely distant from human habitation, provided the opportunity to imagine this environment before mankind’s mark. Back home in my studio, painting the images of the tidepools I had photographed became a daily meditation.

The places in my paintings exist in spite of our careless disregard. Fragile and impervious, enduring and threatened, gaudy and subtle, disappearing and recovering–these waters are a template of our own existence. These places survive with the duality of our desires—to consume and to preserve. It is my hope that the experience of viewing these works can bring a greater awareness of the value of these astonishing and seldom seen habitats, inspiring a sense of responsibility for their protection and preservation. If they incite a curiosity to explore, to learn first-hand, to study and restore, then my personal vigil has found a future purpose.”

–Connie Jenkins

Artwork pictured at the top of the page: Connie Jenkins, Johnson's Lee, 2015. Oil on canvas, 36" x 58". Photographed by Brian Forrest.