Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Jennifer Packer. This is Packer’s second solo show at Sikkema Jenkins. 

Packer’s painted figures and still-lifes are exceptional for their expressive fields of color, worked tenderly by the artist’s own hand. They are images made with the utmost care–for the subject, and for the artist herself. 

Packer’s subjects are often friends and family, loved ones who serve as an emotive force in her life. Her figurative representations, particularly of Black woman, critique the White male gaze historically directed towards the marginalized subject within art. In Packer’s work, discriminate features fade in and out of abstraction against the color of their environment, creating a protective distance between the direct gaze of the viewer and the subject’s interiority. 

Packer’s still life florals echo the same fragility and tenderness of life expressed in her portraits. Derived from the art historical tradition of still life painting, Packer’s floral images are concerned chiefly with modes of light, color, and touch; a delicate working of the painted medium in response to loss and emotional trauma. Packer’s flowers serve as an act of grief, commemoration, and healing.