Jennifer McCandless

Artist Statement:

My recent work is figurative, narrative and often satirical. I use humor in the work as an enticement, to make the work accessible and the content more palatable. My work deals with what I know, not only issues of being female but of one’s place in societal structures, generational conflict, interpersonal conflict, body image and motherhood and aging. The work can look extremely precarious and humorous but is often a mirror into something darker. Having been formally trained in figurative sculpture (and as a teacher of figure sculpture), I use elements of proportion and detail in just enough quantity to make the figures believable but highly expressive. I play with formal issues of movement and mass, negative space and contrast, texture and the liminal place between representation and abstraction in representing human character. The figure persists in my work now as the best and most direct avenue to exploring the human condition.

Artist Profile:

Jennifer McCandless , born 1967, Detroit,MI.

Jennifer received her BFA in Sculpture from Otis/Parsons School of Art and Design and her MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taught Ceramics and Sculpture at Wayne State University and The Loomis Institute. She is currently Art Department Chair, Curator and Director of the Mercy Gallery and a Nichols Fellow in Art at Loomis.  Jennifer has exhibited nationally and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Michigan Council for the Arts Individual Artist Grant, The Palmer Fellowship 2011-2015 and the Skowhegan Fellowship. Her extensive exhibition history includes shows at the National Sculpture Society, the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, The Lemberg Gallery, the Housatanic Museum, the John Sly Ely Museum, the Elmhurst Art Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, The Frederick Meijer Museum of Sculpture and in 2018, her work will be featured in Fahrenheit 2018 at the American Museum of Ceramic Art. She has also exhibited in the Miami  (X Contemporary)and NYC (Superfine) art fairs 2015-17. She has beenArtist in Residence at Abba House, Ghana, The Vermont Studio Center, The Millay Colony and MASS MoCA.