Jeffrey Terreson

Jeffrey Terreson knew from an early age that he wanted to be an artist. Born and raised in Westchester, N.Y., and with a passionate eye for color, texture, and composition he earned a four-year Merit Scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design, where he rose to the top of his class, receiving his BFA in 1977. After graduation, Terreson returned home to New York City to begin a career as an artist. For years Terreson painted and supported himself through his fine art illustration. His artwork was published for many Fortune 500 companies including Mobil, IBM and NBC as well as the United Nations and the PGA. His art also appeared in nationally published periodicals such as Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Readers Digest, and many more.

After a great deal of success in the New York art scene, Terreson decided it was time to raise his four children and take his art in a new direction. He currently works in an abstracted representational style that embraces the textures of digital and traditional media. Terreson continues to steadily produce pieces based on his original roots as a painter, while exploring and integrating elements of mixed media. His work is in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States, and his paintings are available in select galleries.

We were first drawn to the underlying graphic elements of his paintings that are so coated in layers of texture that they revert to abstraction, reinforcing the raw and emotional elements of the painting. We love how this artist uses color and texture to evoke force and strength in his horses while the same gentler treatment underlines innocence and softness in his children.

In attempting to describe his creative process, the artist says, “First, I pencil in a rough sketch to remind me where I am going. I use archival paper or canvas, which I have either adhered to hardboard or stretch on a frame. The under painting is the foundation of my art. It includes blocking out the colors and choosing the various textures: gel medium, sand, wax, thick and heavy paint. The textures may be digitally inspired, or physically created. Once the under painting is in place, I breathe life into my work with oils. I love the texture of oils. And I love color; it is an ally. I love moving it around, layering it into the textures, setting up verticals and horizontals against each other. I find myself intent on moving the process outside of my initial box of reference and into the impressionistic field that defines what I do … When I stay with a challenging design, or uncover an intuitive sense of color, when I struggle fluidly and push myself to where I haven't been before, then I embrace a sense of success rising from the pure elation of the creative process. I love what I do.”
Needless to say, so do we.