Hespe Gallery presents new still life
paintings by Mimi Jensen beginning May 2 through June 1, 2013. A reception will be held on Thursday, May 2nd,
2013 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Mimi Jensen is a hyperrealist still
life artist. She paints scenes that she has carefully constructed as analogs to
actors on a stage. Much like actors, the objects communicate meaning through
their individual presence and through their relationship to other objects in
the scene. Her compositional style places the objects on the same plane without
depicting one as superior to another. Reflection plays an incredibly important
role in Jensen’s works, revealing portions of each scene that would typically
have been concealed, a technique often utilized in Dutch still life. Through
reflection, the objects transcend their basic nature and become communicative
vessels for Jensen’s personal world. Just as she draws from still life
technique, Jensen overtly pays homage to artists with significant personal
influence on her, often including a postcard of their work or a stack of art
books. Before and among such influential works, the objects which Jensen takes
the most pleasure in painting are some of her favorite things: a martini, a
tiffany box, a classic novel. The symbolic reward of these objects reminds us
that all things in life are worthy of appreciation, and even the seemingly
mundane objects in our world are worth celebrating.