Jennifer Barton

Artist Statement  

 

I choose a variety of subjects and render them with precise and gestural marks. It is not my intention to begin with a gesture as a foundation and then move to a more polished image. I want precision and gesture to exist separately as evidence of different ways of looking. The result is a layered history of mark making in order to understand my subjects and their ability to emote complex memories and associations. The nostalgia they confront is not done with sadness or longing for another time, but with an attitude of acceptance that embraces the inevitability of change and the possibility of embracing the present with optimism and curiosity. 

 

Artist Bio

Jennifer Barton works predominantly in painting and mixed media. She has a BFA and an MFA from Brigham Young University and is a recipient of the Utah Arts Council Fellowship and the Utah Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. She was accepted as resident of Art Space Studios in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Her work has been exhibited in Salt Lake City at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the Rio Gallery, the Art Access Gallery, Modern West Fine Art and the Finch Lane Gallery. The University Art Museum, Santa Barbara, The Marshall Arts Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona and the Museum of Eastern Idaho have also featured her work along with other national and international venues. Jennifer is a devoted teacher and works as an adjunct instructor at Brigham Young University teaching  figure drawing, painting, drawing, composition, and color theory. A believer in the arts as a catalyst for change and integral to community, Jennifer has been involved with numerous exhibitions which seek to raise awareness and provide assistance to disadvantaged communities, by connections between women in the arts and raising funds for refugees. She created an after school art program at a local elementary school in her community and also assisted with art education in the classroom and involved students in coordinating exhibitions. She currently works to raise awareness in her community through the arts about the the need to protect the wild spaces that interface urban areas of the Wasatch Mountain Range in her home state of Utah.