BIOGRAPHY
Jenny Wilson is a professional musician and artist. She was a student at the High School of Art and Design in NYC and studied dance at the Alvin Ailey/Pearl Lang School in Manhattan. Interested in almost all aspects of visual and performing arts she eventually decided to pursue music as her profession. Jenny graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in Flute Performance. During that time Jenny worked as the art teacher at the Community School in Camden, Maine and also worked with the Camden Shakespeare Company as company musician. After graduating from the University of Maine Jenny went to Switzerland and studied flute at the Winterthur Konservatorium with Marianne Stucki and piano with ECM recording artist Art Lande. Her graduate studies in music brought her to West Virginia where she earned her Master of Music degree. She accepted a teaching position at the Morgantown Learning Academy as their music and art teacher and was an adjunct in the music department of the University of Maryland in Frostburg. Jenny currently teaches private music lessons and workshops. Her paintings are in private collections and in juried exhibits across the country. Her painting "Broke Down Fences" won third place in the West Virginia Division of Culture and History Emerging Artists Exhibition 2018 and was purchased for the collection in Charleston, WV.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are best described as contemporary landscape or contemporary abstract. I am very focused on the natural world of plants, clouds, sea and sky. My work has been described as "evocative", "elegant", "a feeling of being in the picture". Sometimes my work has a quality of stillness, as in a frozen winter's afternoon or heavy humid sunlight. Recently I have begun to work in water color and I find the improvisational aspect of the medium gels with my background as a jazz musician. Passion for color and texture are what excite me about painting. Exploring the geography of my imagination becomes the realization of an image, possibilities become choices and the final product is the outcome of many decisions along the journey. As a musician and composer by training, my painting gives me the opportunity to reverse direction- music is a temporal art that only moves forward. Painting allows me to stop time, to make choices in slow motion and to experience the art of composing in a whole new way. I am informed by my musical knowledge – gradations of tone color, balance, tension and release, rhythm all play into how I compose a painting. My background in art includes a good deal of drawing. Drawing is an important element in my painting. I try to incorporate marks that allude to the structure of the piece and that give some architecture to the image. Layering paint is also an important to my process. I will activate the blank canvas with bold strokes that give me a structure to play upon. I often view painting as music unwinding itself and coming to some harmonic conclusion upon the canvas.
Jenny Wilson - ARTIST/MUSICIAN
jentomusic@yahoo.com
304 319-0699
www.jennywilsonjazzart.com
AWARDS /GRANTS
West Virginia Division of Culture and History Professional Development Grant 2020
West Virginia Division of Culture and History Emerging Artists – Third Prize 2018
West Virginia Division of Culture and History Professional Development Grant – 2014
Arts Mon Morgantown, WV Community Development Grant – 2014
SOLO EXHIBITS
Daily Dish – Silver Spring, MD 2016
Terra Café- Morgantown, WV 2016
Arts Mon – Morgantown, WV 2016
Daily Dish- Silver Spring, MD 2017
Arts Mon- Morgantown, WV 2017
Beckley Arts Center – Beckley, WV 2017
Daily Dish – Silver Spring, MD 2018
Arts Mon- Morgantown, WV 2018
Take Five Meditation Studio- Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 2019
Daystar Gallery – Chevy Chase MD 2019
Brookside Gardens – Wheaton, MD 2019
Arts Mon Morgantown, WV 2019
River Road UU Church- Chevy Chase, MD 2020
ETC Gallery Wheeling, WV 2020
Daily Dish -Silver Spring, MD 2021
DISTRICT Arts Gallery – Frederick, MD 2021
Saville Gallery Allegany Arts Council – Cumberland, MD 2021
JURIED GROUP EXHIBITS
Tamarack Juried Exhibit– Beckley, WV 2016
Stifel Fine Arts Center Juried Exhibit– Crosscurrents Wheeling, WV 2017
Chambersburg Council for the Arts Miniature Juried Exhibit Chambersburg, PA -2017
WV Division of Culture and History Juried Exhibit Morgantown, WV – 2017
Delaplaine Arts Center National Juried Exhibit Frederick, MD – 2018
Friendship Heights Juried Summer Exhibit Chevy Chase, MD -2018
49th Juried Exhibit Carnegie Hall Lewisburg, WV – 2018
WV Division of Culture and History Emerging Artists Juried Exhibit – Charleston, WV 2018
Tamarack- Let There Be Light Juried Exhibit -Beckley, WV 2018
Wills Creek Juried Exhibition Overlooked Allegany Arts Council Cumberland, MD 2018
Beckley Arts Center Juried Exhibit – Autumn in Appalachia Beckley, WV 2018
Art and Nature 9th Annual Juried Show – 2019
Wills Creek Juried Exhibition – Allegany Arts Council- Cumberland, MD 2019
WV Biennial Exhibit – Charleston, WV 2019
Power of Small Things Juried Exhibition – Port St. Angeles, WA 2019
Connect/Disconnect Chevy Chase Village Center, Chevy Chase MD 2019
MAA Show at the Meeting House Gallery Columbia, MD 2019
Small Wonders – Circle Gallery Annapolis, MD MFA 2019
Fusion District Arts Gallery Frederick, MD 2019
Winter Members Show – Maryland Federation of Artists-Annapolis, MD 2020
MAA Members Show – 2020
Cultural Center of Cape Cod Juried Show – S. Yarmouth, MA 2021
Ch/Art – Chevy Chase Art Group Members Show -2021
