No War But Class War

Oil on canvas
30cm x 60cm

Jen graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1996 with a degree in Fine Art. She joined Rogue Artists’ Studios in 2000. Her work is held in a public collection and private collections both nationally and internationally and has been selected for several Open Art exhibitions. Amongst these are the Jackson’s Open Painting Prize, New Light Art Prize, The ING discerning Eye Exhibition, The Wells Art Contemporary, The Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival and the first and second HOME Exhibitions, Manchester and in 2023 was selected for he R A Summer Exhibition. She’s also exhibited UK wide including Sheffield, Walsall, Liverpool and London. In 2018 she appeared on Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year where the judges chose her in their top three for the heat.

In May 2021 her motorway paintings were featured in the Guardian online and the Grid section of the Observer’s New Review arts and culture magazine and again in Jan 2023 when one of her paintings appeared in the ‘On My Radar’ feature.

Jen is an associate member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. (MAFA) and is also on the platform Gertrude.

My current practice focuses on one of the fundamental elements of human relationships, connecting with each other and connecting with the people who are closest in our lives. This connection can manifest itself emotionally, spiritually and physically. The latter requires us to come together, meet, see and touch each other. This cannot happen without one crucial act, the journey that takes us to them. This, in the most part is achieved by various means and modes of transport. The one I focus on and have been investigating through my painting practice is the journey by car and the relationship we have with the motorway and its landmarks. These visual representations of everyday topographies and the framed view from the car make up and form the basis of memories and nostalgia. The importance of these external landscapes is often mirrored by the internal dialogue of the driver and passenger with the confinements of the car at times offering an intimate confessional space. The mundanity of these every day actions often belies the truth of deep routed emotions that come with well-travelled routes to the people and places that mean the most to us. In these paintings I aim to portray this feeling, emotionalism is a key element in the success of each one and as a viewer you are forced to look down the road as its sole traveler and undertake each journey as your own. Each bridge or landmark acts as the sitter in the landscape’s portrait, confronting you head on, holding your gaze as your mind travels under and beyond its concrete confinements.