Energetically Speaking, 2024

Jocelyn Teng  

Jocelyn (b. 1987) is an abstract, figurative artist based in Toronto Canada. Her journey as an artist has been a winding path, marked by a decade spent immersed in the dynamic worlds of fashion and illustration after earning her university degree in fashion design. This foundation in form, line, and the expressive potential of the human figure now informs her explorations as a self-taught painter. Working intuitively with acrylics, oil pastels, crayons on canvas, panels, and paper, she embraces the immediacy and tactile nature of these mediums.

 Her artistic sensibility has been deeply shaped by a lifelong exposure to the creative process, nurtured by her father, who is a full-time artist. The origin of her work draws from the vivid and dreamlike surrounds of her early childhood in the mountains of southern Taipei. These memories of lush forests, mountains and river infused with a sense of wonder and mystery, resurface in the abstract and figurative forms.

Through the confident perspective of a woman rooted in her power, Jocelyn navigates these recalled landscapes and the figures that inhabit them. Her large-scale paintings explore the inherent state of impermanence that underlies all of existence. Like movement of the wind, water flowing or fog dissipating, the journey of self-discovery is a constant state of flux. She strives to capture this ephemeral quality, allowing forms to emerge and dissolve, mirroring the fluid and ever-changing nature of memory and identity. Her work becomes a visual meditation on the transient beauty of life and the enduring strength found within its continuous transformation.

Jocelyn’s work is held in private collections across Canada, the United States, Australia, United Kingdom and Taiwan.