Jennifer Packer @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York - Quality of Life

Jennifer Packer: Quality of Life
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
November 29, 2018 - January 19, 2019

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. presents Quality of Life, a solo exhibition of new paintings by JENNIFER PACKER. This is Packer’s second solo show at Sikkema Jenkins. 

Jennifer Packer’s painted figures and still lifes are exceptional for their expressive fields of color, worked tenderly by the artist’s hand. They are images made with the utmost care–for the subject, and for the artist herself.

Jennifer Packer’s subjects are often friends and family, loved ones who serve as an emotive force in her life. Her representations critique the positionality, autonomy and power of the marginalized subject. Her work intends to address the primacy of the gaze within painting as a locus for accountability and representation. In Jennifer Packer’s work, distinct features fade against the color of their environment, creating a protective distance between the direct gaze of the viewer and the subject’s interiority.

The floral still lifes echo the same fragility and tenderness of life expressed in her portraits. Situated within the historical tradition of still life painting, Jennifer Packer’s floral images are concerned chiefly with painting as a language for the transmission of information through touch; a delicate working of the painted medium in response to loss and trauma. Jennifer Packer’s flowers serve as an act of grief, commemoration, and healing.

Born in 1984 in Philadelphia, JENNIFER PACKER received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2012. She was the 2012-2013 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, from 2014-2016. 

Jennifer Packer’s first solo museum show, Tenderheaded, was exhibited at The Renaissance Society, Chicago in September 2017 before traveling to the Rose Museum at Brandeis University in March 2018. The catalogue that accompanied the exhibition includes a conversation between Jennifer Packer and Kerry James Marshall, essays by Jessica Bell Brown and April Freely, a poem by Safiya Sinclair, and an introduction by curator Solveig Øvstebø.

SINKKEMA JENKINS & CO.
530 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
www.sikkemajenkinsco.com

Jennifer Packer @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co., NYC - Breathing Room

Jennifer Packer: Breathing Room
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
December 10, 2015 - January 23, 2016

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. presents, Breathing Room, a solo exhibition of new drawings and paintings by JENNIFER PACKER. 

Rejecting classical representation and formal composition, Jennifer Packer creates expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that suggest a casual intimacy. Jennifer Packer views her works as the result of an authentic encounter and exchange. The models for her portraits—commonly friends or family members—are relaxed and seemingly unaware of the artist’s or viewer’s gaze.

Jennifer Packer’s paintings are rendered in loose line and brush stroke using a limited color palette, often to the extent that her subject merges with or retreats into the background. Suggesting an emotional and psychological depth, her work is enigmatic, avoiding a straightforward reading. “I think about images that resist, that attempt to retain their secrets or maintain their composure, that put you to work,” she explains. “I hope to make works that suggest how dynamic and complex our lives and relationships really are.”

JENNIFER PACKER, born in Philadelphia in 1984, received her BFA from the Tyler University School of Art at Temple University in 2007, and her MFA from the Yale University School of Art in 2012. In 2012-2013 she was Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and since 2014 has been a Visual Arts Fellow at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Jennifer Packer lives and works in New York.

SINKKEMA JENKINS & CO.
530 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
www.sikkemajenkinsco.com