Hi I'm Jen, I’m from the suburbs of New York! There’s not much to say about my hometown hahaha.
Can you tell us about your work?
This year I managed to finally settle into exclusively painting - and I mostly use acrylics, often with some fluorescent colors mixed in. I think my personality and work habits are more geared towards acrylics, since I tend to do things in short bursts and change my mind a lot. I always end up watering them down like crazy though, so sometimes they look more like watercolor or gouache. Recently I’ve been experimenting with image transfer techniques and collaging - I draw a lot of my inspiration from everyday experiences.
What would you like your work to express?
I’ve been told my work is very “sincere”. I think that I try to express a sort of sentimentality that I tend to project onto moments in my life. Sometimes I’ll find pictures on my phone that I took without thinking about much, but start seeing some significance there, it’s a lot of fragments so it’s always these little scenes (I can’t seem to make anything on a large scale hahaha). Maybe I’m just self-absorbed (lol), but I think they’re like an inner monologue- the paintings are always full of inside jokes and references. It’s kind of like trying to figure out what being a person in the world means - all these places and things I’m doing and mixing up memory and imagination. I think the paintings convey a shaky optimism and curiosity about the world - which feels especially poignant right now.
Are there any patterns in the art world that struck your attention?
I’m captured by the ways artists are trying to navigate our current predicament (namely: COVID). On one hand I’m impressed by community coming together and finding new ways to create and show work. On the other hand I feel frustrated by the idea of “quarantine art”, and this pressure to be hyper-productive. Also, these days I’m sometimes just a little too antisocial to keep up with the social media art scene hahaha.
What is your favorite art material and why? I kind of touched on this above :-)
What do you connect with in painting? In an interdisciplinary program like SAIC, how did you land on painting? Was it always a love or did you find a passion for it at SAIC?
When I came to SAIC my main focus was painting, but it was most because it was all I knew how to do. I was actually determined to find my “true” medium, and tried a whole slough of classes - ceramics, fiber, printmaking, performance, neon, etc.
Over time I actually developed a real love and appreciation for painting - and I was also kind of bad at a lot of the other stuff (especially fibers, yeesh). I really enjoyed the interdisciplinary practice though, I think learning about the aesthetic values of different mediums helps me understand my chosen medium a bit better. I’m also pretty open to experimentation - although I haven’t really done much recently hahaha.
What has been your favorite course at SAIC?
I’m actually in love with the Science department at SAIC. Kathryn Shaffer’s classes are absolutely wonderful. Physics and Math etc. might not seem essential for an artist, but I think they help me open up my thinking. My Science courses have really shifted the way I think about the world - I don’t directly reference science in my work but I honestly think it’s an important part of the worldview I convey.
Did you have work in the Spring 2020 Undergraduate Exhibition? Would you like to share it with us here? Do you have an Instagram page you would like us to share?
Yes, my work is currently entombed in Sullivan Gallery!
I don’t have many closeups of the installation, but I’ll post some once I get the work back on my art instagram:
@jenroche_art
Halfway There, 10h x 10w in
How has the transition to a home studio effected your practice?
I’ve been super unproductive and hate being crammed into a tiny spot in my bedroom. I’m also super messy and keep spilling paint water everywhere. I had this big giant canvas in the studio that I was agonizing over, but since I can’t really work on it at home I guess I can forget about it for now LOL.
Have you been able to maintain a fruitful practice in a new innovative way?
I kind of touched on this, but I’m a bit hesitant about the whole innovating our practices during quarantine thing. I think my work is definitely changing naturally based on my environment, but I don’t like to think go it as quarantine work (maybe that’s just semantics though haha).
I think a change for me is that I feel a bit less pressure now that everything’s so up in the air. In some ways it’s bad because I’m less productive, but in other ways I’m really enjoying the silly work I’ve been doing.
My big “project” right now is just taking a little time each day to make a painting in my Animal Crossing world - it’s always a realistic paining of a still-life in my house or a virtual plein air landscape painting somewhere on my island. In some ways it’s a reaction to quarantine - painting nature in my virtual life. But I also kind of think of it as a protest to artists’ quarantine expectations; I’ll just play video games and make boring observational paintings! Fuck you! But yeah, you can totally find me under #quarantineart on instagram LOL.
I’m also hoping to have a virtual art show at my house in Animal Crossing, and am currently gathering in-game artworks from my peers to put on display. I’ve actually seen a couple iterations of art world invading animal crossing. I hope that compared to those instances I can keep things pretty light hahaha, it’s a silly game after all. I hope my art show feels like it could fit into the narrative of Animal Crossing.
The Animal Crossing paintings I'm referring to as "Paintings from Truffleton" (Truffleton is my island name lol)"
How long have you been in Advanced Painting? Also, what has been your favorite part of being in Advanced Painting?
This was my second semester in Advanced Painting. I started to feel more like a part of an Advanced Painting community around the end of last semester, and was really excited to deepen those bonds this semester. Things kind of got cut short, but it’s nice to see everyone making efforts to communicate online. I honestly feel a bit more comfortable in the virtual!
Has your work changed a lot through your time in Advanced Painting?
I think having a studio allowed me to explore a lot of new techniques. I think my work develops very slowly, but I think I managed to develop a more authentic sense of my work during Advanced Painting.
What would you say to a student on the fence about applying to Advanced Painting?
I would say it’s a challenge worth taking. It really challenges you to think independently and hold yourself accountable. At the same time it can give you a huge amount of freedom - and conversations with teachers are really invaluable. I think the class can really show you what kind of artist you are.
Thanks!