Jen Fries

 

Personal Information:

 

Born:  New York, New York, 1963.  Current residence/studio:  Somerville, Massachusetts.

Attended:  High School of Art & Design, NY.  Majors:  Illustration / Advertising Design.

Member:  Brickbottom Artists Association, Somerville, MA.

URL: www.jenfries.com

 

Style, Media, Bodies of Work:

 

Surrealist

Mixed media collage, assembled sculptures, artist’s books

Figures, hands, masks

Animations, toys, games

 

Exhibitions & Projects:

 

2005       OPEN STUDIOS, Joy Street Artists & Brickbottom Artists Association,

                Somerville, MA

                An Afternoon with George at the Dog Park, installation,

                collaboration with Riki Moss.

 

2005       THE DICTIONARY PROJECT, group show, Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA

                The Coming of Marplot (or, the Sin of Literacy), collage with text and

                images (private collection)

                (Reviewed: Boston Globe)

 

2004       WHAT IS BIG?, group show, Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA

                Eat me Drink me, collage-construction / The Doll’s House, artist’s book

                (private collection)

                (Reviewed: Boston Globe)

 

2004       Art*o*mat vending machines, various locations (on-going)

                The Sins of Icarus, artist’s book

 

2003       VORTEX: A JURIED ART EXHIBITION, group show hosted by Blue Man Group
at the Charles Playhouse, Boston, MA (award: 3rd place)

                The New Masses, collage

 

2003       POWER OF WORDS: PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, group show, Perkins Gallery,

                Stoughton, MA

 (part of the Words on Fire exhibition series)

                Morbid Anatomy, artist’s book

 

2001       MARDI GRAS, group show, Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA

                Masks and collages.

 

2000       ARTISTS MASKS, group show, Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA

                Fox Ancestors, masks.

 

2000       SPIRITS OF THE EARTH, solo show, Sungardens, Inc., Burlington, VT

                Masks and assemblages

 

2000       Manhattan Pizza Restaurant & Bar, Burlington, VT

                New York Scenes, mural, collaboration with Megan Quain

 

Applied Design:

 

Life Tools for Living:  surrealist stationery products including:

The AntiSociety parting cards & Id-Entity instant CVs

 

Teaching:

 

Eliot School, Jamaica Plain, MA — book arts; paper arts

Paper Source, Cambridge, MA — book arts; paper arts

Shelburne Craft School, Shelburne, VT — paper arts

Spirit Dancer, Burlington, VT — history, art, and symbolism of Tarot

 

The Art:

My work talks about a lot of things, but it is really about the problem of
communication, which is always getting twisted by the subjectivity and
ambivalence of understanding. I am trying to provoke personal interactions
 that will make people not only think about what they're looking at but also
think about the way they are thinking about it and they way they express
 their thoughts.  All of the images and objects represent real things, people,
events, conversations, and stories, but their content is left unexplained
because it is irrelevant to the purpose of the art, which is to stimulate imagination.

 

The Artist:

I am a New Yorker by birth and inclination but not residence.  I studied
advertising design and book illustration at the High School of Art and Design
in New York City and am self-taught in fine art.  I've been doing this for
more than 20 years.  I also make jewelry, stationery, and handbound books. 
I write horror/fantasy fiction.  I have a cat and a television, but no mansion,
no yacht, no house in the country with a white picket fence. 
I was born under the sign of Aquarius in the year of the Rabbit.