Nona’s Gabriel met Jennifer at a children’s party. Immediately drawn to each other they began a conversation, which is still going many months later. “We delved in to the depths from the get go and I feel that Jen’s art touches those depths so strongly. One of the things I am so touched by in Jen’s work is the emotion it conveys, each piece deeply emanating feeling. It creates such a strong connection between the artist and the viewer which is all I ever really look for in a piece of art, the ability to make me feel something”.
The presence of line, form and colour sings richly and beautifully on the canvas. There is no hiding in this work which feels brave and so exciting!
Gabriel recently spent time with Jen in her beautiful Suffolk studio and got to ask her a few questions bout her work as well as take photographs of some of the Nona Grace dresses which Jen wears so perfectly.
QUESTION: Would you tell us a little bit about your creative process - how do you start and finish a piece of work?
ANSWER: I love this question. Honestly, the creative work starts as soon as I wake up, but my children are 5 and 8, so their needs come first. So by the time I enter the studio, I’m in a pretty compressed state of mind post-school run. Ordinarily it’s such a rush I’ve not even had a cup of tea, so I sort that out first. I stare at recent work for a bit, I consider what’s working, what felt good, what says the most. If I’m beginning something new, I start with a feeling, a memory, it’s like feeling inside one’s mouth for a sore spot, a wobbly tooth. Then I consider a colour palette, grab the canvas and go. Occasionally I will draw a vague composition, but so frequently the final piece is nothing to what my brain thinks the piece is about, when I try to draw it out first. I go with this, I build the elements according to what feels right, it doesn’t need to have any distinct narrative, in fact I’d rather it didn’t. As for when a piece is finished… probably at the point where I fear if I add another thing, I’ll ruin it.
QUESTION: What drives you as an artist?
ANSWER: I just want to understand myself. We are here so briefly, so I want to know you, the broader ‘you’, and I need to know who I am too. I wake and sleep seeking it.
QUESTION: How does the use of different materials affect your voice and what you communicate through a piece of work?
ANSWER: Drawing with ink or charcoal is very immediate, I can create something I recognise, I can take a dream and draw it and see it. But sometimes I can’t get the fuller feeling, it’s too static. So I paint in order to deliberate over what I really mean to say. To break up the restrictions of the drawn line. To colour in what cannot be expressed otherwise.
QUESTION: What has changed in your practice since becoming a mother?
ANSWER: When the babies were small, I’d sew and make clothes or little quilts, I’d bake cakes or make candles, I grew vegetables and arranged flowers, just about anything that felt creative but under the guise of being for the children and the home. Don’t get me wrong, I also did a lot of tv time and desperate phone scrolling and anything you can think of that does not fit that wholesome picture, but all those things were a kind of mental survival, not creative practice. My youngest just started school and that has really allowed me take down that last bastion of guilt about dedicating myself to something that’s not about them. Now I work really hard, as hard as I have ever worked, as soon as I’m in my studio, for what is really a very short space of time around family demands. I’m lucky because that hard work is also a great a joy in my life. I don’t take it for granted the privilege it is to be able to focus on creative pursuits. I should also say it has taken a lot of mental health work and intervention to get there. Any mothers out there feeling a bewildering loss of themselves? If you can, talk to a friend or somebody you trust about this. You are not alone.
QUESTION: How important is colour in your work?
ANSWER: Very important!! It’s always been a part of me, from how I dress to how I look at the world, arguably in colour and texture before form.
QUESTION: Lastly, would you tell us a little bit about your upcoming show in Orford this December?
ANSWER: It’s my first solo show at The Watchhouse, a beautiful new gallery space on the Orford Quay. It opens this Dec. 15th - 21st. It marks a year since taking on a larger studio space at the fantastic Old Jet in Bentwaters, Suffolk (@oldjet), and the results of what a year, some space to think and a community to think with, can bring.
