J. Charboneau is an ambitious creative with roots in Minneapolis where she completed her Fine Art Painting degree in 2008. She then traveled to 21 different countries living as a nomadic painter and muralist for over 5 years. The creative energy in Reno-Tahoe and the expansive landscapes of the region have inspired her to make Reno home. In March 2024, Charboneau’s work was showcased as part of the HP Billboard Gallery, her piece MEMORANDUM #4 (Beyond this rolling field) was on view on Oddie Blvd & Silverada Blvd in Reno, NV.

We caught up with Charboneau as she let us visit her studio, and discuss her daily art practice.

Travel is important to Charboneau’s artworks. Rather than obsessively photographing her experiences, she fills notebooks with sketches of landscapes, figures, and words that resonate with the present moment, and environment she is in. In their gestural, and abstract forms, Charboneau’s sketches translate the memories of the places she has been. These memories encompass all that is real and imagined in the ways we remember. Remembering, rehashing, and reforming the initial sketches leads to larger paintings, and finished artworks.

The finished works are uncanny like memories as they resemble landscapes and figures that exist, and  environments and people that do not. This is the root of Charboneau’s impressionism. A city block that looks all too familiar, but is not. It is a combination of places, and a blend of forms that leads a viewer to reflect. A viewer reads her images, dissects them, and identifies what is familiar to understand them through their personal lens.

This experience of viewing Charboneau’s artworks is further developed in the installations of her exhibitions. Playing with scale, interaction, and exhibition design, a viewer can mentally and physically experience her work from the perspective of personal reflection, and recollection of the places one has been.

So much appreciation for Charboneau for giving us a glimpse into her studio and practice. Follow her on instagram @j.charboneau and check out her website, jcharboneau.com, for more works and upcoming projects.