DEAN DAY GALLERY

ARTIST STATEMENT

 

Manipulating shadow, blur, and reflection is the centerpiece of Jennifer Wagner’s artistic practice.  Her mixed media work is a blend of plaster, acrylic paste, and powdered pigment.  These varied materials are forced repeatedly through masks, creating marks that relate to classic impressionism more than modern expressionism.  By teasing an active form from this control mechanism, she reveals her visual idiom:  “Creating freedom from control and randomness from organization”.  Therefore, each form is an alter ego of the artist’s inner self. The patterns used in her work are gleaned from old world geometric decoration.  Design motifs such quilts, kaleidoscopes, and mandalas are often her inspiration.

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The artist’s mark is more accurately described as “built up” versus painted.  Layers are applied, many times on both the forward and reverse side of an acrylic sheet or embedded within layers of resin and plaster, giving the work a delicate feel without losing a sense of action. When viewing Wagner’s work, there is visual depth at even the closest distance; what is being observed is light flowing beneath translucent layers creating faint shadows beneath higher marks.  Minimal yet complex in its execution, Jennifer Wagner is exploring both artistic and emotional content with her work.

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Surrounded by a wealth of materials and equipment, Jennifer first experimented with different themes and processes. This later matured into a passionate, constant discipline pursuing abstract expressionism. Her work embodies linear soft square marks placed in forward and aft hierarchies, creating a prismatic depth to her pieces. Her vision is pure, advanced, prolific, and full of life and innocence.

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