New Page — Jen Ferguson

About the work: My painting process is intuitive and adaptive to each subject. Through layering and manipulating the paint surface, I experiment with representing a sense of temporal depth and mystery within a scene. I’m often interested in representing the spaces between objects and spatial planes, therefore backgrounds have a large importance in my work. My paintings are characterized by simplicity and focus on essential elements that encourages viewers to contemplate and interpret them on their own. I seek to evoke a sense of openness and ambiguity that allows the viewer's imagination, memory, and narratives to co-create within the familiar context of landscape painting. I use subtle color, light, and shadow to convey mood and atmosphere, through which the viewer may experience a range of emotional tones. I experience my work as theater sets, ready and open for the viewer to step into and experience the catharsis of their choice.

Range: In art, it's possible to speak different stylistic “languages”. While much of my work focuses on landscape, architecture and the emotional resonance of places, I also paint living creatures, real and imagined, and have a personal figurative style that I use to express the foibles and folly of humankind. As I continue to work on updating this website, I will add a section that highlights those other important aspects of my work. Though differing in subject, each approach informs the other.