by Beth Stewart
This is the eleventh in an ongoing series in which The Beat Magazine 2025 takes readers “Behind The Scenes” to meet the talented creative individuals who make the London area such a vibrant arts and culture community.
In this segment, Beth Stewart profiles London-based visual artist Jamie Jardine.
Jamie Jardine breaks his art down into three categories: landscape, abstraction and illustration. The reason for this spread is interesting.
When he enrolled in the Fine Art program at Fanshawe College in 1996, Jardine admits he didn’t know much about art history or the art world in general, and it was the Art History classes that had the biggest impact on him. So, when he started to paint, he was impressionable.
(Pictured: Jamie Jardine, “Departure”, acrylic, 24 by 20 inches. Image courtesy of Paul Lambert Photography.)
After a visit to the Dali museum in Florida during his first year at Fanshawe, he painted slightly surreal landscapes. After his first visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where he encountered work by members of the Group of Seven, he fell in love with the Canadian landscape. He began to exhibit his work and, when people responded positively to the landscapes, he did more.
Jardine says, “Throughout my early career I would take breaks from the landscapes, usually after an exhibition, and I’d play around with abstraction. The act of pushing paint around and playing with colours and textures really grabbed me. I began to bounce back and forth.” This became a bit of a “tug of war” for him, and he struggled to choose just one approach.
(Pictured: Jamie Jardine, “Emerging”, acrylic, 30 by 36 inches. Image courtesy of Paul Lambert Photography.)
In 2014, he left his first gallery with a lot of questions about himself, the gallery system, and the art world in general. He recalls, “In some way, I wanted to leave it all behind, but I was already pretty deep, and I was now raising two children.”
His departure from the gallery allowed him to step back and reexamine his love for art and what really interested him. He says, “I went back to my childhood interests and began painting robots on some of my discarded landscapes. The result was divisive, but for the first time in a very long while, I didn’t care what people thought.”
(Pictured: Jamie Jardine, “Heat”, acrylic, 10 by 8 inches. Image courtesy of Paul Lambert Photography. )
This was liberating for Jardine. It was also concerning; how could he continue to make a living painting, if what he painted was robots and spaceships?
Today, he paints in all three genres and enjoys each one, as does the art-loving public.
Asked what drives him to create, Jardine says, “It’s just what I do. I rarely take much pleasure from it. Satisfaction might be what I strive for.”
Art has helped him overcome periods of depression. Economic survival is another key motivator.
(Pictured: amie Jardine, “The Monster”, oil, 20 by 16 inches. Image courtesy of Paul Lambert Photography.)
Currently, Jardine has an exhibition of his sci-fi work at the St. Thomas Elgin Public Art Centre. It runs to August 22. It is his first public solo exhibition and includes preliminary work and sketches that offer insight into his process.
Jamie Jardine has been represented by local galleries since 2000 and exhibits his work through the Benz Gallery in London, Ontario.
To see more of Jamie Jardine’s work, visit: https://www.jamiejardine.ca/
By Beth Stewart
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The Beat Magazine 2025 