ABOUT

Jen Prior is a Canadian painter born in Burlington, Ontario. She studied illustration at Sheridan College before emerging into the Toronto art community in the early 2010s, where she has been developing a practice in large-format acrylic and oil pastel ever since.

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Her work emerges less from intention than from instinct — surfacing through her hands before her mind has named it. She often arrives at a finished piece on a deeply emotional level, understanding that something true has been made without always knowing why. This is where she trusts the work most.

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Prior's paintings move between two currents: the introspective language of contemporary abstraction and the story-holding tradition of folk art that has shaped her visual life from the beginning. Soft layers of colour give way to figures, symbols, and landscapes drawn from nature and spiritual knowing — imagery that carries both memory and myth. Her practice holds both traditions simultaneously, letting each inform the other.

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Motherhood has sharpened her attention to the way moments dissolve into memory — how the present becomes the past in the time it takes to notice. Nature remains her primary muse, now layered with the weight and tenderness of everyday life. In her work, the fleeting is held a little longer. The felt is made visible.

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She lives and works in Ontario, Canada.