Jack McTiernan grew up in upstate New York and a suburb of Detroit. Jack has studied art and design at Canisius College and Pratt Institute. He has exhibited in New York, Washington, DC, Maryland, and California. He has over twenty years experience in design and art supply retail and has held several managerial positions.

His current work explores the combination of materials through a multiple step process, to create dynamic backgrounds. These backgrounds consist of sequential layers of watercolor, pastel (combined with an acrylic varnish), and acrylic applied through spray paint and airbrush. The foreground is introduced onto the backgrounds with a custom process using graphite and a hand-cut stencil. The shape of the stencil is then filled with two layers of acrylic ink, and finally a layer consisting of a cold wax and white oil paint mixture.

These pieces highlight how daily responsibilities distract from the beauty in everyday surroundings. We can find this beauty when we admire the shapes created by what mankind has manufactured to fill the landscape (buildings and bridges even streetlights and stop signs.) His paintings can resemble a landscape after it has been covered by a blanket of fresh snow, or large marble sculpture back dropped by a colorful sunset.