Jill Basham
Contemporary landscape artist Jill Basham was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Columbia, Maryland. Basham comes from a family with a multi-generational history of artists. She grew up with an interest in art, yet it was not until later in adulthood that she began oil painting. Once she began, she never looked back.
Basham is known for her plein air landscape paintings, celebrated for their rich atmosphere and expressive sense of place. While she often paints outdoors on location, she also develops her work in the studio. Deeply inspired by the natural beauty of the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding areas, she remains equally drawn to any scene that evokes an emotional response, whether close to home or discovered in her travels.
Basham is inspired by the work of the California Impressionists, including William Wendt and Edgar Payne, and has studied with contemporary masters such as Ken Auster and Gavin Brooks. She has been honored to participate in, and win awards in, both local and national plein air events and art shows. Presently, her work is hanging in the United States Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, through the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies program. Basham now resides near the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where the local landscape continues to inspire her work. She is drawn to any scene that sparks an emotional response, allowing her to translate the beauty and atmosphere of a place onto canvas.
