Jenny Matthews was born in 1964 in Montreal, Canada. She studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 1986.

"The medium of watercolour is central to my work. The texture of the support, the pigment, the water and the effects these can produce in combination, all inspire me in themselves. I think of my paintings as paint on paper and therefore simultaneously figurative and abstract. Known mainly for my flower paintings, my love of the subject began on Scottish Highland holidays as a child. Since then it has been a passion to seek out flowers and plants wherever I go, be they cultivated or wild. My love of plants and flowers was further refined during my four year degree course in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art when I studied the elective of Botanical Illustration under Dame Elizabeth Blackadder. The colour and form of flowers is what attracts me to them and botany as a theme is one I have been able to pursue whilst living abroad in France and Indonesia."

"Butterflies are another passion and I enjoy exploring the countryside with a sketchbook searching for them and for wild flowers. There is something magical about discovering an exquisite insect or flower in a landscape: the painting is already there and I am attempting to record my wonder at the creation on paper. Working closely with natural subjects and finding myself in wild places searching them out has led me to question myself about our place in the world, which in turn leads to topical matters concerning the environment and how we and other creatures impact on it. When I am outside I feel that I exist within a three-dimensional painting: one which is constantly evolving and changing. Painting is therefore something which I think about even when I am not working, and the enormous difficulty of ever creating something to recreate what already exists in nature is perpetually challenging."

"The weather and the seasons provide an ever-changing palette and ever-changing resource for ideas: I use these colours and effects in my paintings to create mood and atmosphere. Colour is a wonderful thing: it can be vibrant and intense, but equally exciting in its more sombre and neutral guises. And watercolour seems to have its origins in the rain.