Jill Pankey – Painter

Images of women of all sizes and ages cavort across the walls of Jill Pankey’s studio, barely held to the canvas by splashes of oil paint. They’re colorful and kinetic, and the room is alive with them in oversized paintings. These female forms spring from Pankey’s years in the fitness business, colored by her youth in the border town of Del Rio and inspired by a life-long love of dance that put her on a rather distinctive path to today. They continue to flow out of her brushes at every opportunity.
“Every time I try to paint landscapes or something very contemporary; it keeps coming back to women,” she says. “I’m very tuned in to the female form. I like tacky women, and I like real women’s bodies.”

The depiction of those bodies have earned Pankey spots in galleries as close as South Texas and as far away as New York. One painting of a solitary woman titled “Remembering” won her the award of excellence at the Manhattan Arts International Gallery.