WNC Landscapes by Cherokee Artist Jenean Hornbuckle
Mountain Made gallery is happy to welcome Native American landscape painter, Jenean Hornbuckle to our family of local artists.
Jenean paints some the best mountain landscapes we have seen.
She believes that her extraordinary ability to capture the beautiful or our Western North Carolina mountains and to see their hidden power has been passed down over the years from her Cherokee ancestors.
She says that she has “a genetic memory (that) exists on a cellular level and is passed down from generation to generation,” a connection honored by her family.
Jenean’s mother was a Cherokee Nation citizen from Oklahoma, and her father was a member of Eastern Cherokee from the mountains of North Carolina.
Jenean was born on the Qualla Boundary near Cherokee NC. The Qualla Boundary is not a “reservation” but a territory held as a land trust for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
I paint to entice the viewer to go out and find these places and to experience the land. To listen to the quiet.
Her father worked as a forester, protecting and preserving the mountains, and Jenean’s paintings also preserve the beauty of the mountains, in artistic form.
While the aesthetics of her paintings come from traditional Cherokee culture, she developed her technical skills in college classes where she worked to earn her fine arts degree.
Jenean says, “I’ve lived my life in western North Carolina and there’s no place I’d rather be than on a creek side or mountain top. I heard a quote once that inspires my work: ‘I can not leave here, the land knows me.’ ”
If you are interested in taking a special piece of the mountains home with you this year, we invite you to come by the gallery to see Jenean’s wonderful artwork > Directions to Mountain Made Art Gallery.