Enable Uncontrol by Kristen Jensen
A part of Wanderings and Wonderings
September 9 and September 16, 2017
Storm King Art Center
Enable Uncontrol is a performative sculpture and painting workshop led by artist Kristen Jensen. Adults and kids 12 and older are invited to join the artist to make their own paintbrushes from found materials, and then make observational paintings with supplies provided. Guests are welcome to take their paintings and brushes home.
While in residence at Shandaken: Storm King in 2017, Jensen utilized a spartan list of materials including sumi-e ink and rolls of rice paper, fashioning crude but beautiful brushes out of branches found near her studio. She intended to use these awkward, handmade tools to produce painted studies for future sculptures, and to repurpose the gestures of this manner of painting in future performances. Although her materials were too awkward to make elegant paintings, the difficulty of their use offered her freedom from traditional rubrics of skill, opening new possibilities for painterly form.
Informed by this experience at Shandaken: Storm King, Jensen's Enable Uncontrol offers artists and nonartists alike the opportunity to create their own art-making tools. Participants will be provided with materials to make their own sculptural brushes for sumi ink painting, and then encouraged to make individual and/or collaborative paintings based on specific sculptures or figures in the landscape.
Kristen Jensen is an artist living and working in New York City. Her practice is interdisciplinary, often taking quotidian experiences and domestic objects and reinterpreting them in diverse mediums. The artist's desire for control and perfection is challenged by both the unpredictability of the materials she chooses and the traces of the artist's hand. This tension is reflected in the flaws, cracks, and subtle finishes that transform the mundane into things both pathetic and poetic. Recent shows include a solo exhibition, Lighter, Later, and performance, Some Grace ll, at Miller Contemporary in New York City in the summer of 2017, as well as an exhibition of works and the performance Power Ballad at NADA NY 2017. She has also exhibited domestically and internationally at Simone Subal, Wallspace, Nicelle Beauchene, and Bortolami Gallery among others. Jensen is currently finishing up her tenure as an Abrons AIRspace 2016-2017 resident.
This program is presented in collaboration with Storm King Art Center. Initiated in 2013 by the Art Center, Wanderings and Wonderings invites visitors to engage with artists in creative and unexpected ways. Participating artists have created tours, maps, performances, poetry and movement workshops, new media, and deeply thoughtful conversations. Since 2015, Wanderings and Wonderings has been co-presented with the Shandaken Project, featuring select alumni and collaborators.