Featured Artist Jennifer Fleming

Jennifer Fleming creates romantic images with a “sense of place” by combining botanical sketches, vintage typography and warm, subtle color. Enjoy more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

I am an American mixed media artist dividing my time each year among three cultures.

 

 

Whether I’m in the American Southwest, New England, or Europe, each “home” comes with its own unique identity traits and recognizable visuals. My goal is to produce sense of place art that brings to the forefront the beauty of these different foreign worlds, while visually suggesting that “the grass is not always greener…”

 

 

It is a human world, full of our wonderful inventions, creations, and touches; yet due to humanity our world is also tinged with imperfections. I want to lean on my romantic filter in order to hand pick the good, the beautiful. And yes, occasionally jagged little reminders will invade each piece, keeping it real.

 

 

I do this by creating layers. These layers may change, but can be of painted folk patterns, traditional tile and textile designs, architectural details and collaged iconography. Likewise, I paint vintage typography and local advertisements which illicit romantic visions of my current place. Mixed media allows me to combine these elements like a perfume—the head chord, the heart chord and the bass chord, creating something poster-esque that might conjure up fond memories of a childhood vacation, or urge one to travel abroad, jumping into the unknown. I want each piece to carry a strong sense of place, leaving no doubt about its flavor or authenticity.

 

 

My color palette is taken from geographical climate and landscapes. The heat of the sun, the azure of the Mediterranean Sea, the ochre in the canyons, the red New England autumn, the silver-green of an olive grove all aid in producing the feel of a place.

 

 

I honor a place’s beauty by choosing paint colors reminiscent of its nature. Local flora fascinates me, as it doesn’t ascribe to any nationality. It simultaneously belongs to all and to no one, nature doesn’t need us. For this reason, I choose to keep my botanical drawings in their most basic, pure, artistic form—grisaille sketches. These botanicals tend to hold a dominant place in each piece, and they often weave in and out of my imagery.

 

 

On the flip side of that natural and cultural beauty, I want to acknowledge that life is a work in progress. Nothing is truly complete or perfect no matter where you go. Therefore, I call upon fragmented papers, foreign text, faded designs, missing parts, partial imagery and visual borders of some sort.

 

 

Sometimes jarring, the visual fracking is crucial to my overall composition. It symbolizes the reality of an otherwise romantic world.

 

 

I hope that through my transient experiences and subsequently my artistic expression, others will recognize the beauty born from place, with our human fingerprints spicing up its charm.

 

Artist Jennifer Fleming invites you to follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

 

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