Sure As You're Born - an internet space for Sarah Coyne & Egg-A-Go-Go: Other Artists

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Other Artists - Jennifer Lewis

This past weekend Curtis and I headed out to Fort Point for their autumn Open Studios. We had breakfast at Flour to boost our strength and spent a few hours ducking in and out of galleries, shops, and artist's live/work spaces.

One of the last studio visits we made was to the home of Jennifer Lewis in the Midway Studios on A Street.

I had seen Jennifer's work many moons ago at Space242 and in the Made in Fort Point shop last year but it was great to see her stuff in its natural habitat. It was kind of surreal to see the dark, sometimes bloody paintings and illustrations hung in her little kitchen but it was also oddly appropriate.

Candy (sold)

In Lewis's universe you will find butchers, cats working on baked-goods assembly lines, fairytale characters and an earthy palette punctuated by pink and red. It's a nice but creepy place to be. A lot of her characters are wild-eyed and if they look calm, they've probably caused some trouble recently. The dreamy, out of focus textures she creates for her painting surfaces are some of my favorite elements of her work, they are just ragged and chaotic enough to set an uneasy feeling but not too distracting.

Uprooted

It was my second time seeing these cats and they still make my heart skip a beat. You can read more about the larger body of work this piece is from here but they also stand strongly on their own. The scene is slightly upsetting but also comforting. The breath of the two cats crystalizing in the air makes me feel like they're both okay and are headed somewhere warm.

I'm already excited to go back in the spring to see her next batch of illustrations and paintings and hopefully more works inspired by old food and medicine labels.