Jolene Dames

For over 25 years, Jolene has worked behind the scenes of film, television, theater, and live events, painting and designing environments that shape how people feel, move, and experience a story. Her career began in 1998, painting theatrical sets with no formal training, and evolved into a wide-ranging creative practice that includes scenic painting, set design, set decoration, charge scenic work, and on-set scenic artistry for major film and television productions.

That decades-long practice of building cinematic worlds deeply informs her work as a visual artist. Jolene’s personal artwork explores navigation, orientation, memory, place, and transformation — both literally and metaphorically. Inspired by world travel, lived experience, and the emotional architecture of becoming, her large-scale paintings and visual work invite viewers to consider where they have been, where they are, and what is quietly calling them forward.

Her work has been exhibited across the United States, including the Carnegie Museum of Art’s 2 Minute Film Festival and the New York Academy of Sciences. Across mediums, Jolene’s work reflects a lifelong fascination with signs, symbols, direction, beauty, resilience, and the invisible stories held in the spaces we inhabit.

In addition to her professional work in the arts and entertainment industry, Jolene brings training in life coaching, feng shui, yoga, art therapy, TEFL, color, visual design, and creative education to her practice. As an instructor, speaker, workshop facilitator, and guide, she helps others see their stories, spaces, and creative lives more clearly — and design accordingly.

Through Skewed North Studio, Jolene combines cinematic design, intuitive perception, and lived experience to help people reorient their inner and outer worlds. Her work is rooted in a simple belief: everything tells a story, alignment can be designed, and beauty can become a compass.