Artist Statement | CV | Resume

 

Jenny Jansen is an artist mainly working in abstraction. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, she examines a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of memory and identity. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in life.

Her paintings attempt to radiate a child’s misunderstanding in the first memories of their home environments. She applies an inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of her suggestive “galaxy like” paintings, attempt to contrast the reception of a manifold layer of subconsciousness.

In working with abstraction, the images she paints are aesthetically resilient, thematically interrelated images of memory and projection. The possible seems true and the truth exists, but it has many faces. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to conjure the realms of our imagination. Her paintings appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. Jenny’s work often doesn’t reference recognizable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. In a formal way she focuses on the inability of communication, to visualize reality and the attempt of dialogue, the dissonance between form and content and the dysfunctions of language. In short, the lack of clear references are key elements in her work.

CV

2023 Lesley University of Art+Design, MFA, Cambridge MA

2019 Gage Academy of Art/Studied Painting Abstraction

2002 Cuyahoga Valley Art Center, Akron OH

2001 Flux Metal Arts School, Mentor OH

2000 University of Akron, Mary Schiller Myers School of Art, Akron OH

1998 Kent State University (BA), Literature and Poetry, Kent OH

1994 Columbus College of Art and Design, Painting and Drawing, Columbus OH

 

 

PUBLICATIONS

2020 Presence Journal: December Issue Cover, image of “Just Like You”

 

AWARDS

1994 Regional Art Student of the Year, Rotary Club, Canton OH

 

EXHIBITIONS

2023 Lesley University Art+Design Graduate Show

2018 Lucia Douglas Gallery Group Show, Bellingham WA

2018 Whatcom Art Museum, Art Gala Auction, Bellingham WA

2018 Old Town Café, Solo Show, Bellingham WA

2017 Allied Arts, Point of Reference Group Show, Bellingham WA

2017 Lucia Douglas Gallery Group Show, Bellingham WA

2017 Old Town Café, Solo Show, Bellingham WA

2016 Lucia Douglas Gallery Group Show, Bellingham WA

2016 Confluence Gallery Group Show, Winthrop WA

2015 Whatcom Art Museum, Art of the Senses Auction, Bellingham WA

2015 Lynden Art Museum Group Show, Lynden WA

2009-2015 Gallery West – Representation, Bellingham WA

2009 Frameworks Gallery Group Show, Bellingham WA

2008 Oh! Brothers Gallery, Vancouver BC

2004 Elements Gallery Group Show, Peninsula OH

2004 Artists Collective Gallery Group Show, Akron OH

2000 University of Akron Mary Schiller Myers School of Art Fall Art Exhibit, Akron OH