Jennifer Packer

Last updated
Jennifer Packer
Born1984
Philadelphia, PA
NationalityAmerican
Education Tyler School of Art
BFA – 2007
Yale University School of Art
MFA – 2012
Known forVisual Art
AwardsHermitage Greenfield Prize and the Rome Prize

Jennifer Packer (born 1984) [1] is a contemporary American painter and educator based in New York City. [2] Packer's subject matter includes political portraits, interior scenes, and still life featuring contemporary Black American experiences. She paints portraits of contemporaries, funerary flower arrangements, and other subjects through close observation. [3] Primarily working in oil paint, her style uses loose, improvisational brush strokes, and a limited color palette. [2]

Contents

External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg “Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing”, Whitney Museum of American Art, March 23, 2022

Early life and education

Packer was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [4] [5] She attended Tyler School of Art at Temple University where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007. In 2012, she graduated from Yale University with a Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking. [5]

Work

Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Jennifer Packer's first college before going to Yale University. Tyler School of Art.jpg
Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Jennifer Packer's first college before going to Yale University.

After completing her MFA, Packer moved to the Bronx, and later became an assistant professor in the painting department at Rhode Island School of Design. [6] She is currently an assistant professor at Cooper Union. [7]

Themes within art

Packer has been inspired by social justice movements, which can be seen through her floral work representing institutional violence against Black Americans and the resulting grief. [3] For her portraits, she depicts friends and family in an intimate style that is meant to avoid a straightforward reading. [2] [4] [5] In 2013, she made art featuring body parts such as fingers, knees, and protruding jaw lines of straining bodies emerging from the haze, an example of which is Lost In Translation. In 2017, Transfiguration (He's No Saint) [8] shows a young African-American man wearing glasses with two raised arms. The majority of his body is rendered dramatically in brilliant yellow, red, and green. This work represents the prevention of a stop and search of a Black man by police. Circular parts on his flesh signify the marks of stigmata. The figure's eyes are half closed, indicating loss of what he is or expects out of the world. The Mind Is Its Own Place (2020) [9] shows a level of depression and complexity of the human mind within her work through a limited palette in a charcoal drawing.

Settings on art

Packer's subjects are African Americans, and her themes center around oneness. Her art is political, [10] recognizing the social discord all people witness or are affected by in this generation. Despite her art not focusing on the entirety of social injustice, it does bring awareness to inequality within the United States. [11] Visually Impaired is one of her early works which expresses realization and abstraction. It intends to resemble Ferdinand Holder's 19th century deathbed art pieces. In some of her 2017 artwork, she aimed to achieve contrast and depth. Say Her Name, a flower oil canvas piece, is another example, created as a growing flower drawn like a forest. [10] According to a video interview, in most of her early works she decides to create a memento, a slight reference in her artwork to a past artist she was either inspired by or had similar real-life goals in art. Packer tends to draw most human figures with realistic details.

Artistic practice

Packer paints expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still life. [12] She is interested in authenticity, encounters, and exchanges in relation to her painting practice. The models for her portraits are often friends or family members. [6]

In her 2020 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London, her expressionistic paintings were all oils on canvas. Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!) shows her reaction to the killing of Breonna Taylor. A painting of flowers, a traditional form of still life, was used in Say Her Name to reference the death of Sandra Bland. Other portraits indicate inspiration from western sources as diverse as Henri Matisse and Caravaggio as well as Americans Kerry James Marshall and Philip Guston. [13]

She was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. [14]

Selected exhibitions

Awards and Fellowships

In 2013, Packer was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Grant. [4] In 2012–2013, Packer was an Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, [25] and from 2014 to 2016, a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. [4] [26] [27]

In 2020, she won the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, which included a commission to produce a new work that will premiere in 2022 at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. [27] Packer also won the Rome Prize in 2020 from the American Academy in Rome and was a Rome Prize Fellow from January 11–August 6, 2021. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bridget Riley</span> British painter (born 1931)

Bridget Louise Riley is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kara Walker</span> African American painter and installation artist

Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Walker was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1997, at the age of 28, becoming one of the youngest ever recipients of the award. She has been the Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonora Carrington</span> British-Mexican artist, surrealist painter and novelist (1917–2011)

Mary Leonora Carrington was a British-born, naturalized Mexican surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelia Parker</span> British artist

Cornelia Ann Parker is an English visual artist, best known for her sculpture and installation art.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British painter and writer, of Ghanaian heritage. She is best known for her portraits of imaginary subjects, or ones derived from found objects, which are painted in muted colours. Her work has contributed to the renaissance in painting the Black figure. Her paintings often are presented in solo exhibitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Lassnig</span> Austrian artist (1919–2014)

Maria Lassnig was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of "body awareness". She was the first female artist to win the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1988 and was awarded the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2005. Lassnig lived and taught in Vienna from 1980 until her death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luchita Hurtado</span> Venezuelan-American artist (1920–2020)

Luchita Hurtado was a Venezuelan-born American painter based in Santa Monica, California, and Arroyo Seco, New Mexico. Born in Venezuela, she moved to the United States as a child. Although she became involved with art after concentrating on the subject in high school and created art over eight decades, she only received broad recognition for her art towards the end of her life. Her work has strong environmental and feminist themes that bridges many genres, bearing influence from different art movements and cultures.

Mequitta Ahuja is a contemporary American feminist painter of African American and South Asian descent who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Ahuja creates works of self-portraiture that combine themes of myth and legend with personal identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Potter (painter)</span> (1900 - 1981) English artist

Mary Potter, OBE was an English painter whose best-known work uses a restrained palette of subtle colours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie C. Jones</span> American artist

Jennie C. Jones is an African-American artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been described, by Ken Johnson, as evoking minimalism, and paying tribute to the cross-pollination of different genres of music, especially jazz. As an artist, she connects most of her work between art and sound. Such connections are made with multiple mediums, from paintings to sculptures and paper to audio collages. In 2012, Jones was the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wien Prize, one of the biggest awards given to an individual artist in the United States. The prize honors one African-American artist who has proven their commitment to innovation and creativity, with an award of 50,000 dollars. In December 2015 a 10-year survey of Jones's work, titled Compilation, opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Njideka Akunyili Crosby</span> Visual artist

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California. Through her art, Akunyili Crosby "negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collage and photo transfer-based paintings that expose the challenges of occupying these two worlds". In 2017, Akunyili Crosby was awarded the prestigious Genius Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Kerstin Brätsch is a German contemporary visual artist. She is primarily known as a painter, also making work collaboratively as DAS INSTITUT and KAYA. She currently lives and works in New York City.

Nancy Cadogan is a British figurative painter. Her work ranges from still life to landscape and portrait.

Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, installation, and performance. Perry's work investigates "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage" and the portrayal or representation of black people throughout history, focusing on how blackness influences technology and image making. Perry explores the duality of intelligence and seductiveness in the contexts of black family heritage, black history, and black femininity. "Perry is committed to net neutrality and ideas of collective production and action, using open source software to edit her work and leasing it digitally for use in galleries and classrooms, while also making all her videos available for free online. This principle of open access in Perry's practice aims to privilege black life, to democratize access to art and culture, and to offer a critical platform that differentiates itself from the portrayal of blackness in the media". For Perry, blackness is a technology which creates fissures in systems of surveillance and control and thus creates inefficiency as an opportunity for resistance.

Brenda Goodman is an American artist and painter currently living and working in Pine Hill, New York. Her artistic practice includes paintings, works on paper, and sculptures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Guidi</span> American painter

Jennifer Guidi is an American painter.

Amy Sherald is an American painter. She works mostly as a portraitist depicting African Americans in everyday settings. Her style is simplified realism, involving staged photographs of her subjects. Since 2012, her work has used grisaille to portray skin tones, a choice she describes as intended to challenge conventions about skin color and race.

Jordan Casteel is an American figurative painter. She typically paints portraits of friends and family members as well as neighbors and strangers in Harlem and New York. Casteel lives and works in New York City.

Josephine Halvorson is an American contemporary painter, sculptor, and print maker based in Massachusetts. She is best known for her on-site paintings, drawing from scenes of the natural world and everyday life. Her work bends material fact and immaterial illusion. Halvorson is a Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at Boston University.

Larry Walker was an American visual artist and professor emeritus of art. He often used mixed media collages that represent "urban surfaces" on the subjects of existentialism and social injustice. Prior to his death, Walker lived and worked in Stonecrest, Georgia and taught at University of the Pacific and Georgia State University.

References

  1. ↑ Cotter, Holland (29 November 2012). "Racial Redefinition in Progress" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 21 January 2024. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "Jennifer Packer". Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Archived from the original on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Exhibitions: Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing". Serpentine Galleries. 2021. Archived from the original on 5 November 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Exhibitions | Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded". Renaissance Society . 2017. Archived from the original on 4 June 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 Perrée, Rob (8 May 2014). "Jennifer Packer". AFRICANAH.ORG. Archived from the original on 22 January 2024. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  6. 1 2 "Painting Faculty: Jennifer Packer - Associate Professor". Rhode Island School of Design . Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  7. ↑ "Jennifer Packer". The Cooper Union. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  8. ↑ Phillips, Claire (2 February 2021). "Jennifer Packer: The Eye is Not Satisfied with Seeing". The Brooklyn Rail . Archived from the original on 31 July 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  9. 1 2 "Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing". Whitney Museum . 2021. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  10. 1 2 Hardinon, Marques (4 June 2021). "Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Packer". Manifesto!. Artgence. Archived from the original on 26 June 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  11. ↑ Joseph, Ella. "'The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing': review". theboar.org/. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  12. ↑ Manlaykhaf, Youssra; McVeigh, Róisín. "Jennifer Packer's Political Still Lifes & Intimate Portraits Centre Black lives". www.serpentinegalleries.org/. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  13. 1 2 Gompertz, Will (5 December 2020). "Jennifer Packer: Will Gompertz reviews the artist's show at the Serpentine Gallery". BBC News . Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  14. ↑ Sargent, Antwaun, ed. (2020). Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. New York, NY: Distributed Art Publishers. pp. 156–160. ISBN   9781942884590. OCLC   1197085245.
  15. ↑ "Exhibition: Fore". Studio Museum in Harlem . 2012. Archived from the original on 10 June 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  16. ↑ "Jennifer Packer. Treading Water". Wall Street International Magazine [now Meer]. 4 September 2015. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  17. ↑ "Jennifer Packer: Treading Water". ArtRabbit. 2015. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  18. ↑ Fateman, Johanna (2019). "Goings on about town: Jennifer Packer". The New Yorker . Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  19. ↑ Schwabsky, Barry (March 2019). "Jennifer Packer". Artforum . 67 (7). Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  20. ↑ "Jennifer Packer". Whitney Museum . Archived from the original on 29 September 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  21. ↑ Gryntaki, Gelly (10 June 2021). "The power of colour - The brilliant painting of Jennifer Packer". Gelly Gryntaki. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  22. ↑ "Jennifer Packer: Every Shut Eye Ain't Sleep". Museum of Contemporary Art . 2021. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  23. ↑ D’Souza, Aruna (18 November 2021). "Jennifer Packer: Painting as an Exercise in Tenderness" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 20 November 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  24. ↑ "P.5 - Prospect New Orleans: Yesterday we said tomorrow". Ogden Museum of Southern Art . 2021. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  25. ↑ "Artists: Jennifer Packer". Studio Museum in Harlem . Archived from the original on 22 January 2024. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
  26. ↑ "All Fellows". Fine Arts Work Center . Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  27. 1 2 Daniels, Karu F. (18 February 2020). "Visual artist Jennifer Packer named recipient of 2020 Hermitage Greenfield Prize" . New York Daily News . Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  28. ↑ "Rome Prize Fellows | Jennifer Packer". American Academy in Rome . 2020. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.