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Jennifer S. Lange
Jennifer S. Lange is a self-taught artist working mostly in the games industry with a spoonful of book covers, and prefers the fantasy/sci-fi genres - because we know what the so-called real world is like already, so why not expand? Besides painting, she loves creating worlds by writing tiny snippets of stories for her personal works.
Love of learning is her strongest drive in life. Jennifer lives in northern Germany with her partner, and three cats of which only one isn't black.
Artist: Jennifer S. Lange
Based in Lübeck, Germany
Instagram:
ranarh.draws
Culturally Arts Collective features:
"Broken Mirrors", June 10 - July 22 2022, Milostka Center for Exhibitions
What do you aim to say by the themes in your art?
For this particular show, I was going for saying things we don't talk about often but know to be true - small everyday affairs that we deny, play down, or use as a shield against experiencing our own depths. The discussion about whether or not there is a "true self" or if wearing masks for different occasion is reasonable. The fact that we can't not be influenced by those around us. The wish to find a perfect path to walk, and what to tell to those that want to drag us off it.
Where does your inspiration come from?
There are two main lines of inspiration for me: others artists' work for the quality of storytelling, painting, design, the sheer visuals that make me want to create, maybe something similar, and see where that road takes me. The other, a mood, a feeling, a thought, often only a glimpse of something that then spins on in my head, something that I hear or read leaving me with an own idea of what that means. The former inspires me to create for myself and leads to using and learning new techniques, the latter inspires me to communicate and to tackle new subjects.
Do you have experiences that impacted your art?
I have led a blissfully uneventful life so far. Being a sensitive soul, I need a lot of boredom to find the quiet to create. But many small details influence me, perhaps most importantly my proxy life through stories as I make the journey with the protagonists.
Do you feel your art challenges existing barriers?
Yes, I do think that art challenges, and on many levels - immediately apparent when audience denies something even is art because they do not agree with its subject. I believe that the reach of art today can promote change more than ever - a novel containing a previously illegal love may make it seem like it's not weird after all; a painting making us choke when a beautiful portrait includes an underlying, denied horror. I do not believe all art needs to be provocative, but denying that power is pointless.
What are your long-term artistic goals?
I wish to be braver in the scope of my artworks in format and medium, to be more political and philosophical. To tell more stories and do so well. As probably anyone who owns a brush, I have a long list of technical skills I want to acquire, from expressive portraits to realistic oil painting. Frankly, the only thing I can likely live without is to be good at is abstracts, but if I find the time, I'll look at that too.
What advice do you have for aspiring artists?
To distrust their sources. Because following any one school, style, or idol may prove to be the wrong path to their own goal, and they can only find out in time, so using more than one resource is imperative. Very soon into their learning curve, I would remind them that while critics often find out what's wrong with our work - so we should listen to them - they are almost never right about how to fix that ugly.
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