Jennifer Packer

Jennifer Packer

b. 1984, Philadelphia
lives in New York

Jennifer Packer paints portraits, interior scenes, and still lifes that give viewers the impression of having glanced into a neighboring window in passing, or of sifting through personal snapshots. She often engages her friends and family as models, and her work is infused with the authenticity, complexity, and intimacy of those relationships. Packer uses limited color in her paintings and portraits, blending planes into one another, blurring the boundaries between setting and subject. She has altered what it means to produce representational art, which has led her to become one of the most significant painters of her generation. Packer’s work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, New York (2019), and in group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, among others. Solo exhibitions include Tenderheaded, which debuted at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 2017 and traveled to the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2018. Packer earned a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia (2007), and an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut (2012). She is a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

Jennifer Packer, A Lesson in Longing, 2019. Oil on canvas 108 x 144 inches © Jennifer Packer. Courtesy of the Sikkema Jenkins and Co.