Jennifer Packer

Art Brokerage: Jennifer Packer American Artist: Jennifer Packer is a Black woman, Philly-native, and painter. She received her BFA there at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. For her MFA she went to Yale. Yale was important for her in many ways. It gave her space to work in her studio without being disturbed. She did not allow people in her studio. Yale also made it possible for her to have many conversations about work and the working process. She learned to talk about her art, to express her ideas in words, and, if necessary, to defend them. Yale stimulated her to spend time studying her predecessors such as Velasquez, Picasso, Morandi, Philip Guston and many others, and encouraged her to gain a scholarly insight into art history. In 2005 she got the chance to go to Temple University's Rome program to study. That stay had a big influence on her. The works of Caravaggio were an eye opener. His work motivated her. She recognized the underlying human intentions. Jennifer Packer makes portraits and still lives. She asks friends and relatives to sit for her. There is no fixed plan. Sometimes she makes sketches, most of the time "it just happens". The models are not posing, they are relaxed, confident. They are not sitting straight, they hang in the chair. Packer looks for tenderness, for vulnerability, for intimacy. The viewer has to feel the human contact, the realness of the person. "My work is about love and generosity. It does not have anything to do with image making." Her generosity towards her models may be big, but the space, the context, is very important too. There is no hierarchy. It's about body and space together. Therefore many times they have the same color. Listings wanted.