About the Artist

Jen LaGrutta

Contemporary artist working in expressive realism and mixed media.

About Jen LaGrutta

I’m Jen LaGrutta, a Seattle-area artist creating expressive, contemporary work through painting, mixed media, and detailed drawing.

My work begins with recognizable subjects—people, animals, and the occasional unexpected character—but the subject itself is only part of what interests me. I’m drawn to personality, expression, emotion, and the small details that can make a subject feel completely individual.

Whether I’m painting a human portrait, an animal staring directly back at the viewer, or building a more conceptual piece through collage and texture, I’m interested in what exists beneath the immediately visible surface.

Every original is created by hand in my studio south of Seattle, Washington.

The Art of Looking Closer

My work lives somewhere between realism and abstraction.

I often allow a recognizable subject to emerge from layers of expressive marks, scraped paint, fragmented color, and texture, bringing certain details into sharper focus while allowing others to remain unresolved.

Eyes frequently become the emotional center of my work. I’m fascinated by how much can be communicated through a gaze—the quiet strength in an animal’s eyes, confidence or vulnerability in a human expression, curiosity, humor, tenderness, or something more difficult to name.

That contrast between detail and abstraction is intentional. I’m less interested in reproducing exactly what a subject looks like than in capturing what it feels like to encounter it.

My subjects vary, but the questions behind them are often the same: What gives someone or something presence? What makes us stop and look again? And how much can be communicated without being explained?

I want the work to invite that second look.

An Intuitive, Layered Process

My paintings are built through a process of addition and subtraction.

Using acrylic, oil, collage, ink, and other mixed-media elements, I work in layers—adding paint, obscuring it, scraping it back, drawing into the surface, and responding to what happens along the way.  I rarely know what I will paint when I start a a new piece.  I begin throwing down paint and layers to create my background or underpainting. Some decisions are deliberate. Others happen accidentally and become part of the piece. There is an emotional feeling that comes from the physical act throwing down the paint and moving it around with spatulas, my hands, palette knives...where there's a mix of control and chaos...part relief, part excitement, part "what am I doing?". 

I enjoy that tension between control and spontaneity: knowing when a face, an eye, or another detail needs precision, and knowing when an imperfect mark should be left alone.

Texture is an important part of that process. Scraped surfaces, visible brushwork, fragments of collage, gestural lines, drips, and exposed areas allow the history of the painting to remain visible rather than hiding how it was made. 

Drawing offers the opposite kind of experience. Working in graphite and charcoal slows everything down. Light, shadow, proportion, and subtle changes in form demand patience and precision. That discipline balances the freedom of my painting process, but both come from the same instinct—to look closely enough to find what makes a subject compelling.

Character, Presence & Connection

Although my subjects range from contemporary portraits and the human figure to animals and more conceptual mixed-media work, I don’t see them as entirely separate directions.

What connects them is presence.

Sometimes that presence comes through a direct gaze. Sometimes it comes through posture, humor, tenderness, attitude, or the relationship between two figures. In other pieces, it comes through symbols, fragments, words, and layers that ask the viewer to discover meaning gradually.

I’m drawn to subjects that feel like they have something to say without necessarily telling us what that something is.

The work may begin with my experience of a subject, but I don’t want to dictate exactly what the viewer should feel about it. I want to leave enough unresolved that someone can bring their own experience to the piece.

For me, that moment of recognition or connection is when the work becomes more than an image.

Private Collections

Original works by Jen LaGrutta are held in private collections.

LaGrutta Art marks the beginning of a more intentional chapter in sharing my work beyond the studio by bringing together original paintings, drawings, limited editions, and fine-art prints for collectors who connect with my work.

Thank you for being here at the beginning, and for taking the time to look closer.

— Jen LaGrutta