Jen Minkowitz: Work: Fall 2011

Sunflower

Mayfly Day

Drift

The Living Moment (Plant Materials)

Untitled

Moment of Clarity (Oil Paint, Plant Materials)

If I were . . .

Artist Biography

My curiosity and appreciation for the fine arts began at a young age, when I became inspired by seeing the works of my older brother. As I grew, I became increasingly motivated to harness my own craft and create an artistic identity. Eventually, I gravitated towards portraiture, excited by the difficult prospect of capturing every pore and wrinkle. When I began college at Washington University in St. Louis, though, my focus took a drastic shift, and I turned my attention away from people and outwards towards the physical world around us, from the humbling, wide open sky to the optical trickery of how light refracts in a murky looking pond. To me, it was about paying reverence. My goal was to improve and diversify my abilities as an artist, while aspiring to capture moments of the naturally sublime and the ephemeral, through the use of oil paints and found materials. This site is devoted to my works throughout college.

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Artist Statement

How long and meaningful is a single second in time for a creature that lives for just a day? Would every moment linger? Or would the whole day be gone within a blink of an eye? Here and then not here.

With everything that happens in our busy, hectic lives, it is easy to lose perspective. This is why, sometimes, it helps when we are handed a simple reminder of the fact that we are constantly surrounded by a world of beautiful intricacies, which would exist with or without us there to witness them. When was the last time you watched rain droplets shimmy down your window? And did you happen to notice how light refracts within each droplet, in a very different way? Every second, a new canvas is laid out before us. By making art, my hopeful goal is to attempt to preserve and savor an ephemeral or elusive moment in time, to hold onto and suspend for just a little longer.

The reason I choose to paint and not just photograph is because it helps satisfy my need to feel a physical connection with both my work and subject material. I can deeply scrutinize a dried-up sunflower, in effort to capture the details of its dehydrated petals, for hours at a time, and watch how it translates into every brushstroke. My sculptures, which often contain dried plants and other organic materials, are meant to pay homage to what already exists in the world, though through my own personal lens.

Moments come and go and cannot be elongated unless artificially, for instance through a painting. Though, I can't help but wonder, does the attempt to recreate a natural moment in time always pale in comparison to the actual profound experience?

Nature is already poetic. I only wish to use my art in order to point out a few lines that are already written.