Featured Artist January 2017

Jennifer Muskopf

Jennifer Muskopf lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received her BFA from the Kansas City Institute and was a staff artist at the Vermont Studio Center. Muskopf is the founder of Alcatraz Art Group and is an independent art instructor. She is also well-known for her soft sculptures which have been shown in Sweden, Japan, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2014 Jennifer collaborated with Nellie King Solomon during a “Jail Cell Residency” through Alter Space in San Francisco’s SOMA district. 

Artist Statement

It is my on-going desire to remember what has been forgotten and bring it into the present.  I am fascinated by history, all the bizarre and beautiful things people have done and made that reside in our consciousness and remain a part of our physical experience. The stories created in myths and religions add beauty to our science. Our natural world continues to mingle with all that we have produced. Through painting and sculpture I juxtapose what is real with the imagined and put them in altered landscapes to present a world that is both playful and evocative. For example: Genghis Khan with people doing yoga, Tantric sex on old and new televisions, Santa sitting quietly in an underwater cave, an Ethiopian hut next to a New York City brownstone, tigers roaming poolside with my children. I use acryla-gouache and watercolor to paint the scenarios of my alternate reality with intricate details. In these carefully rendered amalgamations one may wonder what is real and what is imagined. My soft sculptures range from small stuffed-animal-sized vignettes to large interactive spaces of contemplation. 

Harper High School Series

These paintings imagine a reality without guns and their false sense of power for this neighborhood and the students of Harper High School. The teens are depicted throughout the streets and among the buildings walking, talking and interacting as young people do with energy and a wide range of emotions displayed and hidden. In my version of Englewood each student has a wolf companion. This vision presents an alternative form of power that comes from a deeper source in our innate virtues where strength and courage, love and trust truly protect and guide us. The dark spheres reveal the presence of something other, something divine. 

To view more paintings, click here to visit the artist's website.