Jennifer Cronin

Exhibition Images

2008-08-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

2008 BFA Exhibition, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL

Being(s) Senior Thesis Exhibition, Old Homeworks Store, Champaign, IL

Painting & Sculpture: A Show About Things, Link Gallery, Champaign, IL

Community Artist Show, Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, IL

P.S. Painting & Sculpture, Link Gallery, Champaign, IL

Artist Statement

2008-08-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

There is always something that cannot be seen. A before and after. Something just outside, on the fringe, or even teeming just beneath the surface. Building upon the ubiquituous but often concealed psychological underpinnings inherent to suburban life, my paintings create an absurd mythology of the seemingly banal.

I am certainly not alone in my upbringing as a female growing up in the suburbs, yet that aspect of my identity has remained one of the most salient and inescapable to me throughout my life. My earlier paintings vibrate with a dark anxiety with women looking for ways out, attempting to break through an invisible something as we passively watch their struggle. Like a painting, they are trapped within their own beauty, grace, and seduction.

Most recently, I have been interested in the fact that my paintings are very unabashedly highly constructed images, just as our reality is construct, perhaps no more real or meaningful than the flat surfaces of the paintings themselves. Making use of it's own artifice, the paintings playfully confront the illusions and assumptions we hold about ourselves and our environment. The paintings themselves grapple with the fact that they are merely paintings. The characters within the paintings confront their existence as merely painted figures. Painted figures struggling to make sense of their existence within seemingly meaningless structures and confines that they are brought into. Painted figures trying to find their way within the backdrop of a painting that is just as incidental and banal as life itself. Painted figures that find ways to cope within their world. Some, like myself, even turn to painting.

Paintings

2008-08-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Gizmo and Dad (Gizmo), Oil on canvas, 30”x 30”, 2006

Gizmo and Dad (Dad), Oil on canvas, 30”x 30”, 2006

Grace, Oil on canvas, 31”x 42”, 2006

Dyadic, Oil on canvas, 67” x 40”, 2006

Mom and Dad (Dad Flossing), Oil on canvas, 32”x 42”, 2007

Mom and Dad (Mom Brushing), Oil on canvas, 32”x 42”, 2007

Pearl, Oil on canvas, 34” x 64”, 2007

Rumination, Oil on canvas, 48” x 64”, 2007

Delusion, Oil on canvas, 54” x 66”, 2007

Untitled (Self Portrait), Oil on canvas, 84” x 48”, 2008

Untitled (Self Portrait), Oil on canvas, 42" x 72", 2008

Pink, Oil on linen, 38" x 66", 2009

Clean, Oil on linen, 56" x 40", 2009

Sunday, Oil on canvas, 42" x 78", 2009