{{Short description|American artist}} {{Infobox artist | name = Jennifer Packer | image = | caption = Jennifer Packer in 2021 | birth_name = | birth_date = 1984 | death_place = | birth_place = Philadelphia, PA | training = Tyler School of Art <br>BFA – 2007 <br> Yale University School of Art <br>MFA – 2012 | field = Visual Art | movement = | spouse = | awards = Hermitage Greenfield Prize and the Rome Prize | image_size = 150 x 200 }} '''Jennifer Packer''' (born 1984)<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cotter |first1=Holland |date=29 November 2012 |title=Racial Redefinition in Progress |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/arts/design/fore-at-studio-museum-in-harlem.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240121231518/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/arts/design/fore-at-studio-museum-in-harlem.html |archive-date=21 January 2024 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=The New York Times}}</ref> is a contemporary American painter and educator based in New York City.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Jennifer Packer |url=https://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com/jennifer-packer |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328214140/https://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com/jennifer-packer |archive-date=28 March 2023 |access-date=2 June 2022 |website=Sikkema Jenkins & Co. |language=en-US}}</ref> Packer's subject matter includes political portraits, interior scenes, and still life featuring contemporary Black American experiences. She paints portraits of contemporaries, funerary flower arrangements, and other subjects through close observation.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=Exhibitions: Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing |url=https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/jennifer-packer/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231105050203/https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/jennifer-packer/ |archive-date=5 November 2023 |access-date=24 June 2022 |website=Serpentine Galleries |language=en-GB}}</ref> Primarily working in oil paint, her style uses loose, improvisational brush strokes, and a limited color palette.<ref name=":3" />
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvYrqE1l_Os “Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing”], Whitney Museum of American Art, March 23, 2022 }}
==Early life and education== Packer was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<ref name="2a2">{{cite web |last1= |first1= |date=2017 |title=Exhibitions {{!}} Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded |url=http://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/528/jennifer-packer-tenderheaded/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604004148/http://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/528/jennifer-packer-tenderheaded/ |archive-date=4 June 2023 |access-date=21 January 2023 |website=Renaissance Society |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Perrée |first=Rob |date=8 May 2014 |title=Jennifer Packer |url=https://africanah.org/jennifer-packer/. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240122000213/https://africanah.org/jennifer-packer/ |archive-date=22 January 2024 |access-date=30 May 2022 |website=AFRICANAH.ORG}}</ref> She attended Tyler School of Art at Temple University where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007. In 2012, she graduated from Yale University with a Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking.<ref name=":5" />
==Work== thumb|Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Jennifer Packer's first college before going to Yale University.After completing her MFA, Packer moved to the Bronx, and later became an assistant professor in the painting department at Rhode Island School of Design.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Painting Faculty: Jennifer Packer - Associate Professor |url=https://www.risd.edu/academics/painting/faculty/jennifer-packer |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404142137/https://www.risd.edu/academics/painting/faculty/jennifer-packer |archive-date=4 April 2023 |access-date=24 June 2022 |website=Rhode Island School of Design}}</ref> She is currently an assistant professor at Cooper Union.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jennifer Packer |url=https://cooper.edu/academics/people/jennifer-packer |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=The Cooper Union |language=en}}</ref>
==Themes within art==
Packer has been inspired by social justice movements, which can be seen through her floral work representing institutional violence against Black Americans and the resulting grief.<ref name=":4" /> For her portraits, she depicts friends and family in an intimate style that is meant to avoid a straightforward reading.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="2a2" /><ref name=":5" /> In 2013, she made art featuring body parts such as fingers, knees, and protruding jaw lines of straining bodies emerging from the haze, an example of which is ''Lost In Translation''. In 2017, ''Transfiguration (He's No Saint)''<ref>{{cite web |last=Phillips |first=Claire |date=2 February 2021 |title=Jennifer Packer: <em>The Eye is Not Satisfied with Seeing</em> |url=https://brooklynrail.org/2021/02/artseen/Jennifer-Packer-The-Eye-Is-Not-Satisfied-With-Seeing |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230731115645/https://brooklynrail.org/2021/02/artseen/Jennifer-Packer-The-Eye-Is-Not-Satisfied-With-Seeing |archive-date=31 July 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=The Brooklyn Rail}}</ref> shows a young African-American man wearing glasses with two raised arms. The majority of his body is rendered dramatically in brilliant yellow, red, and green. This work represents the prevention of a stop and search of a Black man by police. Circular parts on his flesh signify the marks of stigmata. The figure's eyes are half closed, indicating loss of what he is or expects out of the world. ''The Mind Is Its Own Place'' (2020)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing |url=https://whitney.org/exhibitions/jennifer-packer?section=2 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405055638/https://whitney.org/exhibitions/jennifer-packer?section=2 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |access-date=24 June 2022 |website=Whitney Museum |language=en}}</ref> shows a level of depression and complexity of the human mind within her work through a limited palette in a charcoal drawing.
==Settings on art==
Packer's subjects are African Americans, and her themes center around oneness. Her art is political,<ref name="Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Packer">{{Cite web |last=Hardinon |first=Marques |date=4 June 2021 |title=Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Packer |url=https://blog.artgence.co/post/artist-spotlight-jennifer-packer |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220626071738/https://blog.artgence.co/post/artist-spotlight-jennifer-packer |archive-date=26 June 2022 |access-date=2 June 2022 |website=Manifesto! |publisher=Artgence |language=en}}</ref> recognizing the social discord all people witness or are affected by in this generation. Despite her art not focusing on the entirety of social injustice, it does bring awareness to inequality within the United States.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Joseph |first1=Ella |title='The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing': review |url=https://theboar.org/2021/09/the-eye-review/ |website=theboar.org/ |access-date=27 March 2024}}</ref> ''Visually Impaired'' is one of her early works which expresses realization and abstraction. It intends to resemble Ferdinand Holder's 19th century deathbed art pieces. In some of her 2017 artwork, she aimed to achieve contrast and depth. ''Say Her Name,'' a flower oil canvas piece, is another example, created as a growing flower drawn like a forest.<ref name="Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Packer" /> According to a video interview, in most of her early works she decides to create a memento, a slight reference in her artwork to a past artist she was either inspired by or had similar real-life goals in art. Packer tends to draw most human figures with realistic details.
==Artistic practice== Packer paints expressionist portraits, interior scenes, and still life.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Manlaykhaf |first1=Youssra |last2=McVeigh |first2=Róisín |title=Jennifer Packer's Political Still Lifes & Intimate Portraits Centre Black lives |url=https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/get-to-know-jennifer-packer/ |website=www.serpentinegalleries.org/ |access-date=27 March 2024}}</ref> She is interested in authenticity, encounters, and exchanges in relation to her painting practice. The models for her portraits are often friends or family members.<ref name=":6" />
In her 2020 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London, her expressionistic paintings were all oils on canvas. ''Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!)'' shows her reaction to the killing of Breonna Taylor. A painting of flowers, a traditional form of still life, was used in ''Say Her Name'' to reference the death of Sandra Bland. Other portraits indicate inspiration from western sources as diverse as Henri Matisse and Caravaggio as well as Americans Kerry James Marshall and Philip Guston.<ref name="Gompertz2020">{{cite news |last1=Gompertz |first1=Will |date=5 December 2020 |title=Jennifer Packer: Will Gompertz reviews the artist's show at the Serpentine Gallery |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55181949 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404142134/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55181949 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |access-date=5 December 2020 |work=BBC News}}</ref>
She was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition ''Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art''.<ref name="Sargent">{{cite book |last1= |first1= |title=Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art |publisher=Distributed Art Publishers |year=2020 |isbn=9781942884590 |editor-last=Sargent |editor-first=Antwaun |location=New York, NY |pages=156–160 |language=en |oclc=1197085245}}</ref>
==Selected exhibitions== *Group show, ''Fore'', curated by Lauren Haynes, Naima J. Keith and Thomas J. Lax at The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2012<ref>{{cite web |date=2012 |title=Exhibition: Fore |url=https://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibition/fore |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230610004222/https://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibition/fore |archive-date=10 June 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Studio Museum in Harlem}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, ''Treading Water'', Corvi-Mora, London, 2015<ref>{{Cite web |date=4 September 2015 |title=Jennifer Packer. Treading Water |url=https://www.meer.com/en/17361-jennifer-packer-treading-water |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404195153/https://www.meer.com/en/17361-jennifer-packer-treading-water |archive-date=4 April 2023 |access-date=9 March 2022 |website=Wall Street International Magazine [now Meer] |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2015 |title=Jennifer Packer: Treading Water |url=https://www.artrabbit.com/events/jennifer-packer-treading-water |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404142136/https://www.artrabbit.com/events/jennifer-packer-treading-water |archive-date=4 April 2023 |access-date=9 March 2022 |website=ArtRabbit |language=en}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, ''Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded'', The Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2017; Rose Art Museum, Waltham, 2018<ref name="2a2" /> *Solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co (2018); Packer exhibited a large diptych titled ''Laquan'', a colorful still life of palm fronds and fiery peonies, named after Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager murdered by a Chicago policeman in 2014<ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine |last=Fateman |first=Johanna |date=2019 |title=Goings on about town: Jennifer Packer |url=https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/art/jennifer-packer |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404193739/https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/art/jennifer-packer |archive-date=4 April 2023 |access-date=4 March 2019 |magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schwabsky |first=Barry |date=March 2019 |title=Jennifer Packer |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/jennifer-packer-3-243738/ |url-status=live |journal=Artforum |volume=67 |issue=7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607231404/https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201903/jennifer-packer-78707 |archive-date=7 June 2023 |access-date=22 March 2019}}</ref> *2019 Whitney Biennial, curated by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jennifer Packer |url=https://whitney.org/artists/18966 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929043222/https://whitney.org/artists/18966 |archive-date=29 September 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Whitney Museum |language=en}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2020<ref name="Gompertz2020" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Gryntaki |first=Gelly |date=10 June 2021 |title=The power of colour - The brilliant painting of Jennifer Packer |url=http://www.art-cat.gr/texts/category/siro41l9gft27uqmdhzyhl17ft27mf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405120645/https://www.art-cat.gr/texts/category/siro41l9gft27uqmdhzyhl17ft27mf |archive-date=5 April 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Gelly Gryntaki |language=en-US}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, ''Jennifer Packer: Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep'', Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2021<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=Jennifer Packer: Every Shut Eye Ain't Sleep |url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/jennifer-packer-every-shut-eye-aint-asleep |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231219213619/https://www.moca.org/exhibition/jennifer-packer-every-shut-eye-aint-asleep |archive-date=19 December 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Museum of Contemporary Art}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, ''Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing'', Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, 2021<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=D’Souza |first=Aruna |date=18 November 2021 |title=Jennifer Packer: Painting as an Exercise in Tenderness |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/arts/design/jennifer-packer-whitney.html |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20211120151319/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/arts/design/jennifer-packer-whitney.html |archive-date=20 November 2021 |access-date=21 January 2024 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, Prospect 5: ''Yesterday we said tomorrow'', Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=P.5 - Prospect New Orleans: Yesterday we said tomorrow |url=https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/p-5-prospect-new-orleans/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607162503/https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/p-5-prospect-new-orleans/ |archive-date=7 June 2023 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Ogden Museum of Southern Art |language=en-US}}</ref> *Solo exhibition, ''Jennifer Packer: Dead Letter'', Sikkema Malloy Jenkins Gallery, New York, New York, 2025<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wortham |first=J |date=2025-12-04 |title=Jennifer Packer: Art at the Cosmic Edges of Longing |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/arts/design/jennifer-packer-grief-painting-sikkema.html}}</ref>
==Awards and Fellowships== In 2013, Packer was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Grant.<ref name="2a2" /> In 2012–2013, Packer was an Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem,<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Artists: Jennifer Packer |url=https://www.studiomuseum.org/artists/jennifer-packer |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240122002208/https://www.studiomuseum.org/artists/jennifer-packer |archive-date=22 January 2024 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=Studio Museum in Harlem |language=en}}</ref> and from 2014 to 2016, a Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.<ref name="2a2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=All Fellows |url=https://fawc.org/program/all-fellows/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231220103136/https://fawc.org/program/all-fellows/ |archive-date=20 December 2023 |access-date=24 June 2022 |website=Fine Arts Work Center |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Daniels |first=Karu F. |date=18 February 2020 |title=Visual artist Jennifer Packer named recipient of 2020 Hermitage Greenfield Prize |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-artist-jennifer-packer-2020-hermitage-greenfield-prize-20200219-fjqshsg5hbflfe2pxkvoymdora-story.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405135028/https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-artist-jennifer-packer-2020-hermitage-greenfield-prize-20200219-fjqshsg5hbflfe2pxkvoymdora-story.html |archive-date=5 April 2023 |access-date=13 November 2020 |website=New York Daily News}}</ref>
In 2020, she won the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, which included a commission to produce a new work that will premiere in 2022 at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.<ref name=":2" /> Packer also won the Rome Prize in 2020 from the American Academy in Rome and was a Rome Prize Fellow from January 11–August 6, 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=Rome Prize Fellows {{!}} Jennifer Packer |url=https://www.aarome.org/people/rome-prize-fellows/jennifer-packer |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726062353/https://www.aarome.org/people/rome-prize-fellows/jennifer-packer |archive-date=26 July 2020 |access-date=21 January 2024 |website=American Academy in Rome}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://observer.com/2017/09/interview-with-artist-jennifer-packer-on-black-female-subjectivity/ Jennifer Packer interview: Jennifer Packer on Painting the Vulnerability of the Black Female Body @ The New York Observer] *[http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/tag/jennifer-packer/ Jennifer Packer @ ContemporaryArtDaily.com] *[https://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com/jennifer-packer Jennifer Packer @ Sikkema Jenkin & Co.] {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Packer, Jennifer}} Category:1985 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century American artists Category:African-American women artists Category:21st-century African-American painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:Artists from Philadelphia Category:Temple University Tyler School of Art alumni Category:Yale School of Art alumni Category:Rhode Island School of Design faculty Category:21st-century African-American women Category:20th-century African-American artists Category:20th-century African-American women Category:21st-century American women academics Category:21st-century American academics