Bio:
Native to the Pacific Northwest, Jennifer resides in Olympia, Washington. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a focus in oil painting from Ohio Wesleyan University, Jennifer went on to attend the University of Puget Sound receiving a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy. Since the spring of 2015 Jennifer has scaled back her work in health care significantly in order to devote herself more fully to painting.
Artist Statement:
My paintings are meant to convey the particular emotional quality of an experience, memory or dream. What interests me is painting something intangible— like an unexpected feeling that sneaks up on you, like something witnessed out of the corner of the eye or half-remembered, but deeply felt. My hope is that this feeling will somehow be transmitted to the viewer.
Artists of greatest influence to me are those who create powerful emotional responses with intentional, thoughtful handling of their medium and who are continually observing, adapting and learning. To name a few of my favorite painters: Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Etel Adnan, Howard Hodgkin and David Hockney. There are many others.
My process in creating work includes looking, sketching, making many paintings of various sizes, sketching more and re-working. But none of these steps matter unless there’s feeling embedded in the process. On some occasions, if the feeling is a powerful enough driver, the painting happens all at once. I primarily work in oil paint, but also graphite, ink, water media, digital media, and sometimes cut and torn paper as the need arises.