Jennifer Fleming Art
Artist and Teacher Abroad
Jennifer Fleming
Artist & Teacher
Raised in northern Montana by artist parents (mother is a fiber artist and father a fine woodworker), I only know life surrounded by projects and works in progress. In my typical teenage search for “something bigger,” I enrolled as an AFS exchange student to the Netherlands, where my favorite class was drawing, as no language skills were needed. Within that year however, I did learn Dutch, which propelled me into a lifelong quest of language acquisition and travel.
While attending the University of Idaho, I continued to hone my art skills by studying jewelry smithing and textile arts while double majoring in French and German. During Graduate School, I studied Art History at the University of Paris while simultaneously earning my M.A. in French. I intrinsically weave my love of language, travel, and design into each of my creations.
As any wayfaring stranger can comprehend, I seek to uncover the meaning of “home” everywhere my travels take me. Based a half year in Europe, I am the Director of an intensive artist colony program for Proctor Academy, located in the South of France. My group and I spend six months traveling, studying art, and creating together. So many unpredictable experiences happen while doing this, that I feel compelled to write narratives to give others a window into our version of studying abroad.
As a self-professed “cultural anthropologist”, I am often collecting data: what makes this place unique? What color palette best represents this locale? Flora? Fauna? Traditional textiles, architectural elements, local crafts, iconic imagery? Then, using acrylic paints of various viscosity, I paint versions of my findings and metaphorically facet them together like a quilt. Sometimes layering metal leaf, fragmented texts, and vintage imagery also helps to achieve the “visual granularity” of my experience. I am eternally chasing the true essence of place and honor it in my artwork as if it were my hometown.
The other half of the year, my artist husband and I travel the American West, camping off the grid in National Forests, painting, knitting, leather working, and observing this American life. There is so much in our backyard that speaks to me: western traditions, farmhouse findings, California growers and their vintage labels, Mexican tiles, Southwestern colors and those peach and lavender sunsets! I connect with the viewer who longs for the romantic West, void of current events yet full of homesteading character.
PRESS
2019 Instagram Artist Tribute: from Debbierosemiller https://www.instagram.com/p/BwWxMsmBwBL/
2017 Featured Artist on Artsy Shark, http://bit.ly/2qQKUCO
2016 "Art and Meaning" by Carolyn Edlund, Artsy Shark, http://bit.ly/ArtMeaning
PUBLICATIONS
2021 "Hagelslag - Adventures in Dutch Textile Designs", Mixbook Publications, written and illustrated by Jennifer Fleming / https://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/hagelslag-adventures-in-dutch-textile-designs-25806746?vk=4ipDxHvUOfcYTOJ2Ok86
EXHIBITIONS
2020 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibitions Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
2019 Canon Gallery group exhibition, Andover, NH
2018 Gallery Orange, New Orleans, LA
2017 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibition, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
2016 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibition, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
2016 Dick Blick Artist Supplies, group collective display, Las Vegas, NV
2016 Las Vegas Artists Guild 20th Anniversary Show, Las Vegas, NV
2016 Corner Gallery, “A Sense of Fiber”, Las Vegas, NV
2015 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibition, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
2014 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibition, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
2013 Fine Arts Faculty group exhibition, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
MEMBERSHIPS
Global Art League International
Las Vegas Artists Guild
Fine Art America
Society 6