Jennifer Packer
b. 1984, Philadelphia
Lives in New York
venue
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
925 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Monday–Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM
neighborhood
Downtown/Central Business District (CBD)
About the project
Jennifer Packer’s tender portraits of sitters, predominantly friends and family members, meld abstraction and figuration. Self-possessed and radiant, the figures in her paintings are often shown in states of rest or contemplation. The surfaces of her paintings are richly and vigorously worked, revealing an array of painterly techniques and brushstrokes.
In April (2015) the figure seems to emerge from a glowing yellow background. Draped in a seafoam-green jacket, she reclines in a chair, her legs extending toward the viewer and her boots pressed against the foreground of the painting, as if entering into our space. Even as Packer works to create images sensitive to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of her protagonists, she knows well that the vastness of their inner lives lies beyond her grasp. Instead, her paintings aim to capture a feeling of her sitters, an aura and sensation of presence.
In addition to these images of people, Packer frequently takes up still life painting of flowers and flower bouquets. These works capture both the pleasurable beauty and fleeting nature of flowers, which are used to celebrate as well as to memorialize. Works like Calla Lilies (2015) evince her interest in creating a painting of an object that generates an emotional force akin to that of a portrait.
about the artist
Jennifer Packer paints portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that give viewers the impression of having glanced into a neighboring window in passing or sifting through personal snapshots. She often engages her friends and family as models, and her work is infused with the authenticity, complexity, and intimacy of those relationships. Packer uses limited color in her paintings and portraits, blending planes into one another, blurring the boundaries between setting and subject. She has altered what it means to produce representational art, which has led her to become one of the most significant painters of her generation. Packer’s work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, New York (2019), and in group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, among others. Solo exhibitions include Tenderheaded, which debuted at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 2017 and traveled to the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2018. Packer earned a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia (2007), and an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut (2012). She is a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
Jennifer Packer, 2021. Installation view: Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, 2021–22. Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans. Courtesy Prospect New Orleans. Photo: Jonathan Traviesa