BiographyJen Hitchings (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. She was a recipient of the Queens Council on the Arts’ New Works Grant in 2018. She currently lives and works in Burbank, CA .Artist StatementThrough 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. 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. 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 my visual language. 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, reflecting 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.Recent Shows and/or Exhibitions2024Enchanted Lands, with Amy Lincoln and Anna Ortiz, Johansson Projects, Oakland, CAI look at the moon like a fellow traveler, Lamb Gallery, London, UK. Curated by Claudia ChengLight filters through the gaps in the leaves, Artemin, Taipei, TaiwanDreams and Reflections, Richard Heller, Los Angeles, CA2023Seven Suns, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CASexy Xmas VII, The Lodge Gallery, Los Angeles, CARising Tide, presented by Anat Ebgi and Chen Projects, Louisa Art Center, Taipei, TaiwanVantage, Good Mother Gallery, Los Angeles, CAFresh Nature, Kutlesa, Bernerhöhe, SwitzerlandEmanate, Gaa Gallery, New York, NYDallas Art Fair, exhibited with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CAFelix Art Fair, exhibited with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA2023 Cycles, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK2022Deep Life in Heat, Taymour Grahne Projects (online)Helter Swelter, Quality Coins, Joshua Tree, CA. Curated by John WolfPlant-Based, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, CAIf you forget my name, you will go astray, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CAMother Nature, Space2Curate, ArtMuse, New York, NY2021Lugar, Ana Mas Projects, Barcelona, SpainPulp, Pierogi, Brooklyn, NYIf You Lived Here You’d be Home by Now, Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NYWitchhunt, Homocats Studio, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. Co-organized by Julia Norton2020The Production of Place, with Leah Beeferman, Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY.