In the bestselling novel Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens’ lead protagonist, Kya Clark, collects fallen feathers, washed-up shells, woven nests and sun-bleached bones to bring the natural world into her home.
Jewel Hovland’s Naples art studio resembles the fictional setting. Scattered along the windowsills and bookshelves are bottles bunched with branches and leaves and bowls filled with seeds, rocks and bits of wood. A large easel displays a rotation of works in progress, while the bed doubles as a work table with storage cabinets organized with brushes, glue and string.
Like Kya, Hovland’s interest in nature is all-encompassing. Growing up in Naples, the steady sun, sandy beaches and crashing ocean were omnipresent backdrops shaping many of Hovland’s childhood memories. “The sunny atmosphere and endless ocean made me feel so free,” she says. Art was another significant influence, thanks to her dancer mother and her grandmother, who collected in myriad mediums, from English landscapes to photographs of botany and wildlife.
Hovland flexed her creative muscles from the moment she could hold a crayon. In high school, she studied at a boarding school program through the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts before enrolling at Florida State University, where she graduated in 2022 with a BFA in Studio Art.
At FSU, Hovland embarked on an introspective journey of self-discovery. She began thinking about how people use sight to experience art. Inspired by the eye’s interpretation of shape, line, form and color, she explored how vision informs our interaction with the environment. “The eyes are in the front of our head, while the processing of visual stimuli occurs in the back of our brain, and the line that connects them overlaps with infinite currents of consciousness,” she says. She’s fascinated by the likeness between neural patterns, the vast network of mycelium underground, the shapes of rivers, and the webbing of blood vessels—to her, all point to an undeniable correlation between human biology and consciousness and systems in nature. “Associations and pattern recognition are deeply embedded in how we see,” she says. “My art attempts to deconstruct that process and recognize its importance. Everything is connected, and everything has a function implied by form.”
Today, circles are one of Hovland’s most frequently used motifs. “The circle is the basis for our perception of the world while also being the form of this planet we inhabit,” she shares. “Giving our attention to anything involves using the center of our vision … and when we look at the sun, or a nucleus splitting through a microscope, the circle we see reflects so much more back to us.” Repetition is another resonant theme, and one she observes as a unifying element in life, from the body’s cellular structures to the atoms in the air.
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Many of her multidisciplinary works incorporate foraged, organic materials and synthetic detritus. In her studio, these foraged goods are omnipresent. The shifting light moving across scattered books and baskets is fragmented by lacy trees outside her window, while loose acorns and lichen-covered branches give the space a warm tonality. The smell of faded flowers, dried leaves and linseed oil imbues the room with a heady fragrance.
Hovland layers her paints with metallic acrylic and oil, reflecting the wonder of small moments in nature, like a butterfly wing or a pinecone found on the forest floor. One of her sculptures, entitled Bilateral Dendrite, features a symmetrical branch split into two sections, like a set of lungs, with hanging collected treasures, including mussel shells, seed pods and spotted feathers. “As the viewer is walking around it, the pieces actually move,” Hovland explains. “It almost breathes with you.”
Regardless of what she’s working on, every piece begins as a mental image, though the forms can change considerably and be viewed in myriad ways. In one of her graphite works, Subcon. I, a human face is surrounded by abstract forms widely interpreted as sea creatures, intestines, flowers and birds. “I love the subjectability of visual stimulation—it’s unique to every individual.”
Outside the studio, Hovland nurtures her curiosity. “I love to go down rabbit holes and research things like medieval art,” she shares. “I read a lot and really enjoy anatomy, biology and ecology.” She’s also increasingly focused on the science of light, cosmology and physics. Some of her heroes in the art world include Gustav Klimt, the Scottish-based land artist Andy Goldsworthy and the modernism icon Georgia O’Keeffe.
Last summer, Hovland, who splits her time between Tallahassee and Naples, was included in the Naples Art Institute’s summer invitational featuring local artists. The experience presented a full circle moment for her, as Hovland grew up attending summer classes and participating in shows at Naples Art.
Most recently, the artist has worked on a Light Works series, designed to be placed against a windowpane. Like her other mediums, the compositions formed by pressed leaves and layered resin appear to be simple, organic abstractions—albeit ones that directly mirror the complex patterns found in nature. “The light coming through illuminates all of the details, and the glow exists as a beautiful lens,” she says.
No matter what she’s creating, Hovland’s art is an invitation to reflect on the intricacies of the outside world and the magic and mysteries of life itself.
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz
Photography by Omar Cruz