INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the web site of Stevan Jennis. Here, you will find galleries of Stevan's paintings, collages, sculptures, and drawings, as well as his bio & list of exhibitions, and news of upcoming shows and other events. Please check back often for updated information.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I am an artist with varied interests: painting, sculpture, drawing and collage. In my studio, I often have several projects going on at once. Much of my artistic output stems from spontaneous drawings which I refine and elaborate on and these often become the basis for the creation of paintings and sculptures.

In my paintings, line defines my narrative ideas which consist of various affective scenes, all set in timeless landscapes. Disparate images are combined to create a fantasy world. I am interested in creating undefined events, situations that are ambiguous and have a sense of mystery that the viewer can then interpret. Fabricating the landscape as the backdrop for the images sets the stage for the stories. These stories sometime seem to reflect a sense of isolation and even impending doom, yet humor, irony or contradiction works its way through. Color is used to enrich the content and carries an emotional ingredient, a sense of hope, so to speak. One critic describes my work as having a "serio-comic style." (New Art Examiner, Nov.'86)

The sculpture I build emerges from a subconscious yet familiar place in my aesthetic language. Sometimes my mind may suddenly focus on an object that I feel emotionally compelled to re-create in my own way. I take a generic object, then personalize it, often distorting it and imbuing it with an ominous or playful tone. I strive to achieve a dialogue between the viewer and the object by these changes. I want to push the ordinary into a more creative place of importance and establish another way of looking at and experiencing objects, their character,textures, patinas and colors in a 3 dimensional space.

Much of my work, both painting and sculpture, have often focused on or been influenced by cultural icons, scientific objects, charts and maps. I often play at the awareness of the relationship of the parts to the whole as I do with my collages.

ARTIST BIO
Stevan Jennis has been interested in painting, drawing and sculpture since childhood. He was inspired by his father, who was an artist and Merchant Mariner. Born in Newark, New Jersey, the family moved to Los Angeles when Steve was eleven.[more]