Jennifer Small

Region: MFA Annual

Website: http://www.jsmallcreative.com

City / State: Chicago, IL

My paintings, initially abstract in appearance, record a day in a life—a practice that starts with documentation through the lens of a camera. My eyes act as a viewfinder, narrowing down the panoramic into single frames. Compiled snapshots represent blocks of time during which I detect aesthetic significance in ordinary routines. I see curious formal elements in common things waiting to be manipulated and transformed into abstract compositions.

I collage together the single framed images, and simplify and render them in paint to create the lines, shapes, and hues that fill the canvas. Abstracted layers build shallow spaces that contain my translation of the everyday. My paintings show an analysis of time and space arrived at by looking through a lens at my immediate environment.