Featured Artist February 2015

Jenny E Balisle

Jenny Balisle’s monochromatic acrylic sculptures are both wildly energetic and incredibly restrained. Within the tight compositions, forms unravel and the hand-manipulated material, that is so sterile by itself, mimics organic growth and decay.

Her drawings have a similar effect  - small worlds of neatly ordered chaos. Balisle juxtaposes her excruciatingly precise execution with a playfulness of line that adds an element of surprise and curiosity to her work. 

Jenny Balisle holds an MFA from Academy of Art University in San Francisco where she is also an instructor. She is represented by Hang Art and SFMoMA Artists Gallery in San Francisco and Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia. She has recently been an artist in residence at De Young Museum has been in exhibitions locally and nationally. 

Artist Statement

My art practice incorporates work in three separate media; abstract paintings, pen and ink drawings, and sculptural installations made from heated acrylic sheets. The body of work is conceptually linked by my interest in an array of dichotomous relationships—simple and complex, beautiful and grotesque, micro and macro perspectives, and natural and manmade environments. This interest in opposing forces correlates to my process: Working ambidextrously, I engage both hands in my work in an attempt to unify the obsessive and intentional marks made by my right hand with the open and lyrical tendencies of my left.

....Creating and altering line is the foundation to my art practice. The bend in the acrylic installation, the mark in the pen and ink drawing, and the brushstroke made in oil paint create illusions of topographical surfaces. Some elements are forced, incorporated, or blended, while others are skewed, twisted, or implied. I seek a visceral process, and am inspired by the progression from disorientation to clarity.

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