Jennifer Hicks

Jennifer Hicks has a long history of creating art across disciplines; from theater, dance, film, installation, photography, sculpture and drawing/painting. Her work focuses on deep nature and spirituality wrought from humans’ need to understand the pulls and pushes of their surroundings. The human imagination creates myth in relation to the sublime power of nature. Ms. Hicks has created work based on the setting of the sea/shore, mountains, farms, woods, desert etc. and the inner landscape of the body/mind. Her latest work focuses on landscapes on the brink of darkness. Her work focuses on things unknown and floating; questions with no answers.

Last winter (2019/20) while in isolation she tasked herself to take a photo every day during my morning walks in the woods with her dog. Nothing special, no fuss, just be there in the moment and take a photo. The other part of her task was then to post on Instagram, as is. This was to keep her sanity as much as anything else. She didn’t fuss about them. She just paused when something caught her eye and snapped. Simple. This surprised her and allowed her to slow down and notice small natural events that opened up her world. It allowed her brain to open to different timing and wave frequency. To her surprise these were not boring but a kind of peaceful spark. In repetition one finds a release from the chatter of judgement. When spring emerged she started working with sun prints. Again, easy, no judgement, just play. One thing led to another. She felt impressions held in nature and the spiritual aspects we miss unless we take the time to slow down.

During this pandemic period she also immersed herself in the history of world religions, reading the bible, spiritual text etc. and thinking about how religion affects cultural views of the natural world. What do we see in the dark? What do we see in the light? What do we choose to see? What are we afraid of and what makes us feel safe? These are some of the questions that evolved this work.