Jaclyn May Locking

Biography

Jaclyn is a self taught artist residing in Kelowna, BC. In 2011, after a long hiatus and creative block, Jaclyn picked up a box of oil pastels and a sketchbook under the encouragement of a dear friend. Through art nights with friends and solo sessions at home, Jaclyn experimented with different mediums and techniques creating pieces of art for friends and family. In 2016, Jaclyn founded Jackalope Art Co and began practicing with acrylic paints. She submitted pieces to local group exhibitions and fairs, such as UBC-O’s Art On The Line, Artscape, Artsco’s Downtown Gallery, Alternator’s Red Dot Sale, Kelowna Art Gallery’s Members Exhibition to name a few. Upon acceptance of the 2018 Spring Artscape exhibition through Artsco, Jaclyn created a series of twelve mixed media paintings on wood panels based on photos she captured of her local neighbourhood. To Downtown Kelowna, With Love was a love letter to her hometown, honouring the structures of the past as the city charged through rapid development. Since 2018, she has painted over thirty local Kelowna buildings and a twelve panel series of buildings from the San Francisco Bay area.

Jaclyn is fascinated by architecture, lush gardens and the way light plays with space and glass. Colour palettes are primarily inspired by spring and summer around Okanagan Lake. She fuses her obsession with nostalgia and music into her work, pairing essays and meticulously curated playlists with each commission and series. As development continues, changing the face of the downtown Kelowna core, the intent of her structural paintings are to capture the history of Kelowna and honour the nostalgia of simpler times.

In 2020, she turned her structural focus inside and created a seven piece series entitled Driftwood Lounge, painting interior scenes of a beautifully decorated home on Poplar Point, slated for demolition.

Alternatively, Jaclyn’s artistic range is not just limited to structural paintings. She enjoys painting animals, abstracts, murals and her illustrative Sheila series. Regardless of the subject matter, Jaclyn’s art is playful and vibrant, aiming to draw the viewer in with detailed marks and have them walk away with a warm heart and a smile.