Main attraction: Work of local artist Jennifer Main gaining fans

Kimberley McGee

Monday, Nov. 26, 2001 | 8:23 a.m.

With soulful eyes and bodies that float through brilliant landscapes, the paintings of Jennifer Main are reminiscent of such legendary artists as Picasso or Chagall, who struggled for decades before catching the eye of the art world.

But Main's star began to rise in 1997 when she was a teenager.

The 21-year-old Las Vegan's paintings are displayed and sold at Art Encounter, a gallery at 3979 Spring Mountain Road, as well as a gallery in New York. Since graduating from the Las Vegas Academy in 1998, Main's work has been featured in art shows in New York, Colorado, Dallas and San Diego, as well as the annual Art 21 show locally.

Her art centers on abstract paintings of people in whimsical scenes. In her painting "Love Song," a blue-suited man gently holds a violin with a tender expression. In "Composer," a woman strums a mandolin while sheet music floats behind her.

The art industry magazine Art Trends featured an October 1999 article about Main, then 18, saying the artist "is rising above the neon jungle with artwork that is as stylish as any local musical revue and more colorful than the Las Vegas Strip."

Haji Mohayya, owner of H and S Art gallery in New York, began to showcase Main's art after he saw some of her pieces in an art trade show in New York.

In March he hosted a show for Main to display and sell her art. She sold 15 pieces and secured a position at Mohayya's gallery, he said.

"I want to show her to the world and our market is good for that," Mohayya said. "Her work, contemporary style, is what people are buying now."

On a recent afternoon Main talked about her art during an interview at her northwest Las Vegas apartment. Dressed in black with streaks of bright red, yellow and blue paint on her pant legs, she talked with the enthusiasm of a young woman experimenting with her talent, but with the savvy of a business person who understands that selling her paintings allows her to devote her time entirely to art.

"I've been lucky," Main said.

She also doesn't let her youth stop her from being considered a serious artist.

Main won her first coloring contest when she was 6 years old. But it wasn't until she entered high school in 1994 that the petite redhead took art seriously.

With her mother's encouragement, Main entered a drawing of a young girl with deep emotion etched into her smooth face in the local WE CAN (Working to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect) art contest sponsored by the nonprofit organization.

Main brought home the first-place prize for the WE CAN contest, as well as a new direction for her young life.

"I knew that was it, that I wanted to paint," Main said.

Rod Maly, director of Art Encounter, said he chose to showcase Main's art four years ago, although her age caught him off guard at first. He said he saw the depth of talent in the then-17-year-old's art.

"She's really brilliant," he said. "We wanted her right away."

In the first month of displaying Main's art, eight original paintings were sold. In the first year she sold more than 100 paintings, Main said, and caught the attention of more than a few collectors, both locally and overseas. Maly and his staff regularly wrap paintings for shipping to Main's admirers in Chicago, New York and England.

Her first painting sold for about $600. They now garner $4,000.

"She is fresh and lively with a lot of bright colors," Maly said. "Collectors look for those combinations."

At first Main's deep blues and bright yellows clashed with some of the other floral and landscape paintings Art Encounter displayed. But art enthusiasts were drawn to the more fantastic hues of Main's paintings, Maly said.

"I knew it wouldn't go with my decor, but I had to have one of her paintings," Jason Babcock, a local art collector, said. "She's a genius."

He bought his first Main original two years ago. Babcock owns three oil paintings and one print from Main that he has added to his collection of works mostly by Pacific Northwest artists.

"Her ability to see and paint ecstasy, sorrow, grief and complacency is amazing," Babcock said. "She's bold."

In 1998 Dennis Henson and his wife, Candace Ruisi, local art collectors, added Main's work to their art collection, which includes original oil paintings by Leroy Nieman and Russian artists.

The couple met Main after purchasing a painting of hers in 1999. They own seven of Main's large oil paintings.

"We are most impressed with her composition, style and use of color," Henson said. "She's a delightful woman foremost who happens to be a talented artist."

Inspired by

Main studied art briefly at the Chicago Art Institute, but found her love of cubism and surrealism was being stretched into something she didn't recognize. She attended only one semester and came home to Las Vegas.

She counts Picasso, Chagal and Keith Haring as her influences, but the more mundane streetscapes of everyday life are what truly arouses her artistic desires.

"Everything I look at is something that inspires me," Main said.

She has always been especially drawn to people's expressions, she said. Each face has expressions unique to that person, she said, and the possibilities for painting that expression of sadness, joy or pain are endless.

"I've always been so interested in faces," Main said, "especially eyes. I'm extremely interested because of the emotion you can get simply by looking at people and their expressions."

She paints when the mood strikes her, sometimes finishing a painting within hours or working on a canvas for weeks.

"Sometimes I begin with just an eye and go from there and it all comes together," Main said. "It's something that I see in my head and know what it will look like when I'm finished. Other times I go from nothing and it just develops on the canvas."

She has no favorite pieces of her work. If she holds on to a painting too long, she finds herself becoming attached, she said. When she's finished with a painting, she ships it to the gallery or tucks it behind something in her studio.

"If I leave it on the wall too long I don't want them to take it away," Main said. "I know the painting will be leaving for a gallery so I try not to get attached."

Main lives in a two-bedroom apartment with myriad pets including Pixel, a feisty Chihuahua, two turtles named Tenderloin and Diva, and Onyx the millipede.

"It tickles when it climbs your arm," Main said. "I like things that are different, unexpected, sort of scary."

She spends most of her time painting, shopping for antiques to satiate her eclectic style and traveling to art shows around the country.

"I like to paint and experiment, see my paintings mature," Main said. "I hope to grow and do well and paint full time."

As her star rises she is nestling deeper into the Las Vegas art scene, which she said is growing.

Main attends every art exhibit and performance she can find in Las Vegas, especially live symphony music.

"There didn't used to be so (many) art shows with such a good turnout," Main said. "That shows Las Vegas is turning into a cultural place."

Which is why she plans to stay in Las Vegas and possibly open a gallery of her own featuring her paintings and other hobbies, such as painted ties, greeting cards and assorted objets de art.

"I've got a lot to think about," Main said. "I'm not sure what I'll do, but I know it will be interesting."

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