Jay Hambleton came to painting later in life but he came by it honestly, having spent most of his life with artists and art entrepreneurs.
Jay’s father, the late Jack Hambleton, was a water colour and acrylic artist well known for West Coast marine scenes, Okanagan landscapes and for starting the Hambleton Galleries in Kelowna, BC.From 1966 to 1977, the Hambletons lived in an apartment above the gallery and it is from his many experiences in this situation that he draws his childhood memories.Many of the artists featured in the gallery were to become family friends, especially Robert Genn, who became a very close friend of Jay’s father. Jack and Robert were to go on to paint together for many years, taking turns at going to Mexico, New Mexico, Hawaii, France and all across Canada.
As Jay grew up he was exposed to the operations of the gallery and his associations with artists would later frame his interests in the art of painting.This exposure led him into the picture framing business, but not before he spent four years working in the Arctic, establishing what was to become a life-long love of the North.Starting in 1998 while he was managing the picture framing operations for a group of established artists in Kelowna, Jay decided to try his hand at painting. Working evenings and weekends in the basement of his Kelowna home, he read books on painting, resourced imagery from photographs, slides and other paintings he admired, to teach himself about paint, colour, composition and form.Now, after moving his studio to the wilderness town of Faro, in the Yukon, Jay is developing his own style.He is trying to make more unique his design and his methods so as to distinguish himself from others as a professional painter.