Ekphrastic Call: A Series of Multimedia Works by Jennifer Lynne Roberts
with a short interview by Jen Knox and call for literary responses
: Tell me about your process.
Jennifer Lynne Roberts: As an artist with bipolar, the transitory nature of balance I'd experienced for most of my life made me keenly aware of the tension created between seemingly incompatible ideas trying to dominate space at the expense of the other: nature and human; body and mind; creation and destruction.
It's the investigation on how we can achieve equilibrium between oppositions that fascinates me. I want us to witness the beauty that comes in the textures of decay, see the dichotomy and harmony of nature and human, science and superstition… These are only a few contradictions I want to investigate.
I use visual arts as a form of exploration and storytelling to make sense of these concepts as a way to make sense of my world and how to move through it.
: Tell me about each of these works.
Jennifer Lynne Roberts: The red, white, and teal one is untitled: Untitled is mixed media collage using painted papers, chalk, pastels, house paint, newsprint and other found papers. I was inspired by the way the bright red played against the blue-green with the glimpses of under layers of chartreuse and green. For me, it was a study in color and texture and decay. I wanted something to resemble years of exposure to the elements of nature.
Pattern Making is a 3D collage using some of my grandmother's thread and vintage fabric. Inspiration for Pattern Making came about when I inherited a box of my grandmother's vintage fabrics from the sixties and early seventies. I don't sew, but I wanted to honor her in a way that showed respect for her pattern making and the clothes she used to make for us. Pattern Making is mixed media using fabric, paint, and found papers.
The two blue, orange, and chartreuse ones were inspired by water and its calming effects: I'm making various pieces to represent various bodies of water that I've experienced. A Bright Day By The River, and the other is Napa River with Poppies. Both of these pieces were created using the ancient 500 year old Korean technique of paper felting called Joomchi. Joomchi is layers of individual hanji papers bound together by water and aggressively manipulated with your hands until the fibers break down and all of the layers fuse into one creating a fabric-strength piece of paper. Joomchi was used to make clothing due to its cloth-like texture and strength.
Jen Knox: Thank you, Jennifer! For any of our poets and writers, we invite you to respond to any of these works under our Ekphrastic call through the end of 2025.
Sent!!