Jenn Thornhill Verma: Newfoundland Outports

NOTE: This piece is from the Art Junkie archives, reposted because the serene images remind us of the stark difference in so many Newfoundland outposts after Hurrican Fiona in late 2022.

Jenn Thornhill Verma is a writer, artist and Newfoundlander descended from fishers, with a book about the disintegration of the Canadian cod fishery coming out this fall. She painted the cover illustration for Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys. 

Her works at Santini Gallery in Ottawa, where she is based, are reminiscent of where she grew up, the gallery says, her way of handling “the torment of a suffering east coast heart too far removed from the Atlantic Ocean.”

The gallery identifies her works as “landscapes featuring outport and coastal communities in all their perfectly imperfect glory — clapboard saltbox houses, hand-made wooden dories and skiffs, crooked wharves and docks, fishing stages and sheds, stunted trees and, of course, rocks, lots of them.” (If you’re not familiar with Canadian geographic nicknames, Newfoundland is affectionately known as “The Rock.”)

Jenn Thornhill Verma has a background in radio and works in the non-profit health sector. She holds a Master of Science in Medicine, a Bachelor of Journalism/Biology, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction. She has written about her fishing roots in such magazines as Maisonneuve, Downhome, Saltscapes, Newfoundland Quarterly, Explore and The Telegram (St. John’s).

Jenn Thornhill Verma’s profile, here.

Her website home page, here.

Santini Gallery, here.

About the book, here.

Originally published August, 2019