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Jennifer Day

Newburyport, MA

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  1. Enclosure by Jennifer Day, Image 1.

    Jennifer Day

    Enclosure, 2021

    Oil on panel

    48 x 48 in

With black oil paint on a gessoed panel, Jennifer Day reveals the drama of water's liquidity without the infinite options of applying local color. Gray scale sensitivity and range is her goal. To achieve this, she works reductively by rubbing the surface and scraping her fingernail methodically through the paint to find the light beneath. Similarly, the artist explores the ephemeral form of clouds which are, in fact, another form of water. Both subjects require specific formats, preferably large, which speak to the untenable immensity of the natural world. In striking contrast, her smaller works bring her closer to the more intimate gestures of trees and organic life. In all cases, the artist works between two opposites: the geometry of the picture plane versus the challenge of the ephemeral and the impulse of nature to escape the plane altogether.

Jennifer Day’s sculpture employs natural materials that she finds in her yard and cupboards to create constructions of construction sites in HO scale. In building these miniatures, the artist shows how small worlds are constructed, yet leaves the idea of “finish” up in the air, so to speak. Her themes revolve around the competing ideas of making and deconstructing, engagement and abandonment, the joy of discovery and the realization that maybe not all is well, or fun. Twigs, toothpicks and wood scraps combine in tiny invented worlds. They seduce all ages by virtue of their toy-like scale yet are quizzical and even forbidding. Some examples include a self-powered treehouse, a defunct coal tipple, a ziggurat constructing itself and an underground fort, also “creating” itself.