Artists aren’t made.

They are born.

There is very little you can do for them.

Louise Bourgeois

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Born in Salem, Oregon as Jennifer Wilkinson. I live in San Francisco.

Autodidact by nature, I created my independent painting classes while studying Philosophy at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. During my studies, I won the President’s Award, the school’s top art prize and received a grant for a 4’ x 7’ painting which was on the yearbook cover and is now in the college’s permanent collection. I ended up being the second woman in the college’s history to receive honors in Philosophy in 1993 and the only one to do so without taking a class in my thesis topic (metaphysics and Spinoza). 

After college, I continued to paint (sometimes in heated conditions) while working as a writer. I traveled to Italy and India for a travel magazine and then did my bit for advertising. Last I checked, you can still find my six-pack copy on Widmer’s Wildwood Hard Cider. Advertising drew me into animation and script-writing.

All my experience converged when I conceived of this idea. Based on my thesis-thinking that emotion is not only integral in rationalism/science, but without it our thinking is not complete. It’s not simply the female/emotion in science, it’s a whole revolutionary franchise, combining scientific depth with fuzzy and pink. One reason why I drew a series of women scientists is because so many thought there was only one, Marie Curie. 

In my work, I am inspired by true individualism. Especially those whose self-determinism defied odds with a vision that expanded the boundaries of how we think, thereby influencing the cultural mind. Although some of my subjects are famous, I am more interested in the obscure. These subjects: scientists, artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, friends and family, are people whom I admire, both for their work and their character.

I find inspiration in old black & white postcards, Modern Painters, The Economist and Q music magazines and am indebted to Google images for archaic finds. As a portrait artist, the work of Alice Neel provides endless admiration and instruction as does Lucien Freud, Luc Tuymans, Eric Fischl, Jenny Saville as well as the sculptor Ursula Von Rydingsvard and the continual genius of Louise Bourgeois.

I love color like the expressionists and find the purity of primary color intoxicating. Every piece, I strive for more intense play between complimentary colors. At this point, the color black is never on my palette.

All my pieces are drawn free-hand. Some photos are fairly smashed from my hand gripping them as I draw. In the mixed-media pieces, I use caran d’ache neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels and acrylic on unstretched canvas. Instead of using water, I use the neocolor as a crayon. Drawing a face is very emotionally intense for me and I often press so hard, I break crayons as I draw layer after layer of colors on the canvas. Eventually, I make a thick mat marks, like layers of skin. I like to show the ‘aliveness’ of the crayon-skin by contrasting flat, bright acrylic color for the clothes and the environment, forming a separation between painting and drawing but unifying the piece.

The subject dictates the medium and the form, ranging from traditional portraits, to conceptual, to participatory installation art.

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Art doesn’t care if you’re man or woman.

One thing you have to have is talent,

and you have to work like mad.

Alice Neel