Jen Hitchings

Through symbolic imagery and psychedelic color, my paintings depict the tenuous and historically mythological relationship between humankind and
nature. I investigate the psyche, erotic desire, time, and cosmic forces, referencing the visual languages of Japanese folk art, Hudson River School painting, and
spiritualist archetypes. Using subtle color transitions within a narrow range of hues, versions of cycles from the human and natural experience are rendered: lunar, solar, seasonal, menstrual, reproductive, atmospheric, and plant-life. The compositions convey oppositional, mirrored, or doubled elements, evoking
uncanny symmetry, optical distortion, and Rorschach tests. This combination results in fantastical scenes exuding specific seasons, times of day, temperatures, or moods. Referencing crude line sketches based loosely on places I’ve visited between the American northeast and southwest, I build the compositions using strategic proportions and sacred geometries. Color is methodically applied, removed, thinly stained, or thickly painted in contoured waves–all by hand with no tape or tools–resulting in widely varied textures assigned to each element in the visual language I’ve developed. The images include multiple versions of iconographies–celestial bodies, suns and moons, mountain ranges, oddly reflective deserts, and cloned river paths. Stars are often arranged in either Western Zodiac constellation patterns, or as letters or words in various languages. This decision channels my interest in linguistics, the evolution of communication, and the significance of signs and symbols in humankind’s endless desire to make meaning of our surroundings and existence. An admiration of and trust in nature to guide us is rekindled, and a delicate wavering between serenity and sorrow, isolation and unity emerges–two opposing forces meeting within a cycle.

Jen Hitchings (b. 1988, New Jersey) received her BFA in Painting & Drawing from SUNY Purchase College in 2011 and a certificate in Small Business & Entrepreneurship from CUNY Hunter College in 2018. She has attended residencies at Adventure Painting (Yellowstone National Park), DNA (Provincetown, MA), the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), Studio Kura (Itoshima, Japan), and Highly Authorized (Ellenville, NY). Solo presentations of her work have taken place
at Anat Ebgi (Los Angeles, CA) in 2023, Taymour Grahne (London, UK) in 2023 and online in 2022, One River School (Englewood, NJ) in 2019, MEN Gallery (New York,
NY) and PROTO (Hoboken, NJ) in 2018, and Ideal Glass (New York, NY) in 2017 which was accompanied by a 16 x 30’ outdoor mural. In 2021, she completed two large-scale outdoor murals at The Wassaic Project, on view through 2023. In 2023, she was commissioned by Mailchimp to produce a 9 x 21’ indoor permanent office mural at their new headquarters in Atlanta, GA, along with 39 other contemporary painters. Recent group exhibitions have taken place at Richard Heller, Anat Ebgi, Good Mother (Los Angeles), Kutlesa (Goldau, Switzerland), Chen Projects at Louisa Art Center (Taipei, Taiwan), Taymour Grahne (London, UK), Ana Mas Projects (Barcelona, Spain), Gaa Gallery, Cindy Rucker, Pierogi (New York, NY), and The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY) among others. She was a recipient of the Queens Council on the Arts’ New Works Grant in 2018. Between 2013–2020, Hitchings co-directed Transmitter and Associated Gallery in Brooklyn, NY and is the founder of artist-focused consulting agency Studio Associate. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

CV.

Enchanted Lands

New York Time’s Arts Monthly Curator Insights | by Mark Taylor for SF/Arts
“Nature jumps to brilliantly psychedelic life in Jen Hitchings’ mythological environments. Orange and pink tweak purple and yellow while the moon moves through its cycles. Lime green waters flow; a lone dragonfly acts as silent witness.” LINK

5 Artists on Our Radar in April 2023 | by Josie Thaddeus-Johans for Artsy, April 4, 2023
In Jen Hitchings’s paintings, the natural world becomes as mesmerizing as clockwork: mysterious, yet satisfyingly neat. With the imagination of sci-fi film posters and the precision of M.C. Escher prints, her landscapes in oil and acrylic conjure geometric, mystical worlds of swirling clouds and distant mountains.” LINK

The Artsy Advisory Notebook: April 2023 | by Meave Hamill April 6, 2023
“Hitchings’s otherworldly landscapes are distinct in their sci-fi aesthetic, combining cosmic imagery with bold, high-contrast colors and undulating patterns. I expect to see her name popping up on collectors’ wishlists in the coming months.” LINK

Meet Jen Hitchings | August, 8, 2022 by Shoutout LA
“The biggest inspiration and motivator however might be nature. Trees, funghi, birds, rivers, mountains, the moon – I have love affairs with them all.” LINK