Jennifer Small: Elevating the Everyday

Jennifer Small: Elevating the Everyday

By Emma Hapner, April 28, 2024

Jennifer Small is a visionary abstract painter whose art transcends the mundane, celebrating the beauty found in the simplicity of daily life. While her creations may initially appear formalistic, they are in fact a visual diary, meticulously crafted from photographic snapshots capturing the essence of ordinary moments. Each painting is a mosaic of time and space, meticulously composed from a curated selection of frames documenting her daily rituals. These snapshots are deconstructed and merged to form the intricate lines, shapes, and patterns that adorn her canvases. Small's unique color palette blends reality with imagination, drawing from both her surroundings and inner vision to evoke a sense of harmony and wonder.

Geometric Patterns Meets Historic Pathways, Acrylic on canvas, 48x36", 2024

Artist Jennifer Small

Small, a Pennsylvania native, received her BFA in Painting and BS in Art Education from Millersville University and MFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has exhibited her work in galleries and fairs in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, New York, Richmond, Raleigh, Columbus, Savannah, and Chicago. Media features have included Artist Talk Magazine, Art Seen Magazine, New American Paintings, Studio Visit Magazine, Studio Break Podcast, and Shockoe Artspeak Podcast. She now works as both a painter and visual designer in Wilmington, Delaware.

Shapes Created by the Light are Changing, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 48x36", 2024

Puffs of Green Interrupt the Gray, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 48x36", 2024

In this body of work, Small wanted to challenge herself to make a new collection of paintings that represented a continuation of her work conceptually, focusing on the everyday as a source of wonder to inspire abstract paintings, but that pushed her out of her comfort zone to create large scale paintings on canvas that combine primed and unprimed areas to connect with the variety of textures and types of elements, both organic and architectural, that she observed.

Arches Symbolize Growth, Acrylic on canvas, 48x36", 2024

This series, called Walking in the City tells the story of a single day, Sunday July 23, 2023, walking in the city of Venice, Italy. The textures, shapes, patterns, and colors combined to create these compositions invite visitors to take in and really see the wonder emerging from the overlooked banality of daily routine. While the point of view is personal to the artist, a first-time visitor, non-resident of the city, the work combines a unique perspective on Venice’s visual richness with the universal message of mindfulness that is a result of living in the present.

Pulse: Contemporary Meets Classical, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 48x36", 2023

Small's abstract painting is a vibrant interplay of contrasting elements. Bold black lines dance across the canvas, their dynamic movement drawing the viewer's eye in various directions. Thin washes of paint delicately layer over one another, creating a sense of depth and texture.

Quiet Surrounds Residential Apartments, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 48x36", 2023

Small’s work brings to mind the style that evolved out of Abstract Expressionism; the American postwar movement known as Post-Painterly Abstraction, characterized by its rational, elemental images with a focus on geometric shapes and clean lines. Yet Small’s work is unique in that it also employs the techniques associated with another variant of this movement called color-field painting. Painters working in this mode would often pour diluted paint onto an unprimed surface, allowing it to soak in to the canvas, resulting in spontaneous images with unpredictable patterns. This combination of tight pictorial control, and unconstrained, instinctual painting highlights Small’s skill as an abstract artist.

Brightness Comes from Dark Alleyways, Acrylic on canvas, 48x36", 2023

Morning Light is Bright but Soft, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 47x36", 2023

Jennifer Small is an incredible artist creating distinctive work within the field of abstract painting. By finding inspiration in the world around her and translating those experiences into sensational images rich with color and texture, Small achieved her goal of elevating the everyday to express appreciation for the wonder of the ordinary.

Emma Hapner