JENSEN KUGLER

I have a vitamin D deficiency. In other words, I literally do not get enough sun. It's not as simple as just going outside, this is something I inherited from my dad. In a more general sense, though, I think this is a good metaphor for some of the tensions in my life. I've learned that I really am like a flower. I just need water, sun, and love to be happy. What's hard is figuring out how to find sun where there is none.

This semester, I want to identify and celebrate the things in my life that feel like sunshine. I think there are so many beautiful things in this world that people don't talk about, and I want to talk about them. 

Thematically, this project is about repetition, warmth, and cycles. I intend to cultivate my artistic practice as a form of meditation and emotional regulation, one that helps me feel more comfortable with the unknown. I don't know exactly what that will look like yet, but I'm excited to find out. Whatever path this inquiry leads me on, I expect to emerge with a body of work informed by experience and emotion, a sort of time capsule of the present moment. I'll see you in a while, after I follow the sun.

Thesis Direction & Presentation

By combining expressive, instinctual painting with repetitive, cyclical photography, I hope to live more fully in the present and understand my emotions on a deeper level. This project is a form of self love in that it relates directly to the things, places, and people that bring me a sense of contentment, peace, and joy. This semester is about prioritizing myself and my joy–that which feels like sunshine. This semester, I want to make art that celebrates the little wonders. I believe that there are so many little beautiful things in this world that people don’t talk about—and I want to talk about them! I want to make space for warmth but also honor my hardships. I’d like to invite sunshine in while leaving room for shadow. This project is about repetition, warmth, and cycles. This semester is all about carving out a space for myself, a space for warmth, a space for sunshine. My work this semester is for me, which is itself a very conscious and at times, difficult decision. This is about taking up space and trying to sit up taller. It’s about going back to the earth, of holding and being held. I want to get more comfortable with the unknown and find beautiful things I wasn’t looking for. To borrow phrasing from a book I picked up recently, I’m ready to listen to the warm. 

There is strength in softness. I believe that pretty strongly. We live in a world that really tries to drain the feeling out of you, at least in my experience. I am a very sensitive person, and growing up that sometimes felt like a weakness. I don’t believe that it is a weakness, at least not anymore, because it is not easy to face emotion head on. Art has always been a safe place for me in that regard. Working on Junior I.S. this semester, I have felt that safe space expand from concept into material. I am making art that explores how it feels to hold and be held–in a literal sense, but also on a deeper emotional level. If I have a soul, which I believe we all do, that is what is being really touched by this experience, more so than my brain or body. 

My work as an artist cannot be separated from my lived experience as a queer woman. To me, the connections are obvious. Queerness is the color on my paintbrush, bright and vibrant and painfully alive. Femininity is the movement of my hands: crushing under mortar and pestle, sweeping over canvas, cupping to hold blossoms in the wind. Maybe all of this only makes sense to me, but I think I’m okay with that. I know myself, as much as I can right now, and that’s enough for me. 

HOLDING SPACE (2026)

Jensen Kugler

A sunset isn’t beautiful because it lasts. It’s beautiful because it fades and returns, a little bit different, every evening. Those small, quiet moments are what this project is all about. This semester, I’ve tried to lean all the way in to process over product. Finding comfort in cycles and creating has helped me get more comfortable with the unknown. I’ve let my heart take the wheel. The lengthy, cyclical anthotype process has been a kind of meditation, grounding me in a return to the earth. Paired with the gestural, almost dance-like way I’ve been playing with paint, photography allows me to capture small bits of sunshine. This project is an exercise in both letting go and feeling deeply. It’s about holding space for my hurt, my joy, and most of all, my love. All semester, I’ve returned to a single phrase: to hold is to be held. A tree grows for itself before it becomes a home for anyone else, so I’m building that space, tooth and nail, in every brushstroke. 

This project is a form of self love in that it directly relates to the things, places, and people that bring me a sense of contentment, peace, and joy. While this project involves several different mediums and processes, I see some clear connections between each of the pieces. Perhaps most obviously, there is cohesion in the color scheme. Soft pastel yellows and pinks are consistently seen in my anthotypes and paintings, along with more vibrant sunset colors. I have moved away from crisp edges and stark blacks towards something more organic. Whether or not it shows in the work itself, another connection between these pieces is the mindset behind them. I have been working to let go of my need to control everything. Each piece constitutes a physical manifestation of me doing the hard work of sitting in emotion rather than resisting it.