[ B I O G R A P H Y ]

Jean Arnold is a professional visual artist residing in Lewiston, ID. She has exhibited her artwork in numerous solo and group shows, regionally and nationally. Her work is found in many public, corporate, and private collections. She was included in a 2021 exhibit at the Missoula Art Museum, EDGE OF THE ABYSS: ARTISTS PICTURING THE BERKELEY PIT. In 2022, Arnold had a two-person show with Ellen Vieth at Moscow Contemporary. In 2023, she has a solo exhibit at the Lewis Clark Center for Arts & History, Lewis Clark State College.

Throughout her artistic explorations, Jean Arnold has been visually engaged with how humans impact the land around her. Originally from the Northwest’s Palouse region, its unique rolling hills inspired Jean artistically from a young age. Its graphic patterns and shapes influenced me to combine abstraction and observation in her art.

Arnold earned her MFA from Northern Vermont University (previously Johnson State College), in conjunction with the Vermont Studio Center. She also attended the International School of Art in Italy as part of her graduate studies. She received guidance from many artistic luminaries during these studies. The Italian landscape inspired her and resonated with her own visual experiences of the Palouse.

After graduate school, she chose to work with the urban landscape (while moving through it via mass transit) for almost a decade. Then, her growing concerns about human impacts on the planet – while also living near one of the largest pit mines in the world in Salt Lake City – led her to work with large-scale mining imagery, a direction she continues to work with