Bio 

 

Jennie Kiessling, born in Chicago, MA, University of Chicago; BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; she lives and works in Santa Fe, NM. Jennie is a painter working with formal abstraction as a threshold for understanding shared experience. Her work is in private collections; since 1985, she has shown locally and nationally and has been published by Phaidon Press. She has received NEA (1990) and NEH (2012) grants, is a Ucross Fellow (2019), and was a 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship nominee. She has taught for the Art Education Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the Art Departments at Colorado State University, the University of Wyoming, and Naropa University. She also served as Lead Faculty ("Chair") for Visual and Media Arts at Front Range Community College Ft. Collins, Colorado, and as an adjunct faculty member, where she created a museum studies program and courses on contemporary issues in art (2002-2022). Jennie served as Assistant Director for the Division of Continuing Studies (SAIC)(1985-1996), where she directed community-based art programming on behalf of SAIC for the City of Chicago and within SAIC’s multi-age Studios Program. She has also served as a Program Specialist and Cultural Enrichment Manager for the Chicago Park District (1997-2000), Communications Coordinator for the Wyoming Arts Council (2000-2002), and Assistant Director of the Hatton Gallery at Colorado State University (2002- 2006)

 

About the Work

Gamechangers. Moments so impactful they change your vision of the world.  I've been making work for 40 years. Gamechangers have brought me to this point: Formal Abstraction, conceptual approach, and metaphor; Latin, Italian, Spanish, and English, plus "wordplay," are my titles most of the time. Some obvious other times, not (unless one is paying attention and loves words). The "aesthetics of art and politics" ( Luis Valdez), Liberation theology (Gustavo Gutiérrez), my grandfather, Salvatore Carucci, the Western states, and, in the words of Richard Gambino, "... no contradiction in adding magic to science and religion." are touchstones. From there, the viewer is expected to work with the historic portal that is abstraction. My work is not for everyone; no one's work really is. If it is for everyone, then it is for no one. In life, you have to pick a team, and loyalty counts, along with integrity, respect, care, and faith in what is leading you to create the work. Understand that one's work is service, a manifestation of community that has participated in seen and unseen ways; and that what is made marks a time, responds, mirrors, and contributes to the discourse of the history of art.