Coquitlam filmmaker to premier debut documentary on E.J. Hughes at Vancouver International Film Festival

Growing up near Maillardville, an 11-year-old Jenn Strom would often take a long bus ride down to the Vancouver Art Gallery just to look at the paintings. 

Her early eye for all things artistic has never blurred, and neither has her curiosity.  The Coquitlam-native is on the verge of releasing her first feature length documentary – a film about one of B.C.’s most beloved and enigmatic painters.

Strom’s The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes will premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), with screenings on Oct. 5 and 7, before opening the New Westminster Film Festival on Oct. 24.

Out of more than 5,000 submissions to VIFF, it is one of 170 works chosen.

“My whole life has just been this film for the last two years,” Strom said. “It was really my hope and dream that the film would get to premiere at VIFF, considering that Vancouver and Vancouver Island were kind of the two places that E.J. Hughes grew up.

“People really love his work and it’s such a regional story. I was really hoping to share it with this audience.”

A shy painter with a powerful vision

Hughes, born in 1913, spent his career painting scenes of British Columbia – coastal villages, working harbours, and the rugged landscapes of the Interior. Known for his reclusive personality, he was so shy that he often skipped his own art openings, preferring to stay at home than schmooze with art society.

Though his paintings would eventually sell for millions, Hughes’ early years were marked by struggle. After graduating from Vancouver’s first art school during the Great Depression, he was failing to make ends meet as a commercial fisherman. Yet the sketches he made of boats and rivers during that period later inspired Fish Boats, Rivers Inlet, which set a record at auction decades later.

“Almost his entire life is documented in his artwork – that’s one of the reasons for the film’s title,” Strom said. “Everything significant in his life, somehow, he drew it.”

His artistic journey included service as a Canadian war artist during the Second World War. Strom said the experience profoundly changed his art: “His work before the war and after the war are very, very different. The late 1940s and early 1950s are when you see these dreamlike, surreal landscapes emerge, and those paintings are now among the most valuable.”

Bringing Hughes to the big screen

Strom spent five years researching, traveling, and filming the documentary, often chasing down Hughes’ paintings hidden in private collections or museum vaults. Using macro lenses and 4K production, she sought to capture the meticulous detail that makes Hughes’ work so distinct.

“These paintings are actually really hard to find – you can’t just go and see an E.J. Hughes painting,” she said. “So filming them in person, and being able to bring that detail to audiences on the big screen, that was one of the most exciting parts of this project.”

The film also explores how Hughes, despite being out of step with the mid-20th century craze for abstract art, remained committed to vision for B.C. landscapes. 

His canvases – dotted with logging trucks, small fishing boats, and industrial shorelines – double as both art and historical record, according to Strom.

A local film makers journey

For Strom, making The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes was both a professional milestone and a personal journey. She grew up in a family that encouraged creativity: her grandfather played in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and painted in oils. 

“Any of the films I make about artists, especially of his generation, there’s some part of my grandfather that I’m trying to honour,” she said.

Though she initially pursued visual arts and theatre, Strom discovered filmmaking in the 1990s while working at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School on Galiano Island. She has since made short documentaries on artists, but Hughes’ story demanded a larger canvas, she said.

“I love making films that explore the creative process, but I also really like to make things that will speak to people who don’t know a lot about art, and help them connect to their own sense of creativity,” she said.

Now, with her debut feature about to premiere at one of the country’s most prestigious festivals, Strom is ready to share Hughes’ legacy – and her own vision – with audiences.

“It’s been such a profoundly lovely thing to spend so much time getting to know this gentle and soulful man through so many different lenses,” Strom said. “Uncovering the mystery of who he was as this shy and very dedicated painter.”

“It’s been a really, really big task. Now it finally gets out of the edit suite and brings it into communities.”