Jennifer Torres
Artist Statement
I build what I imagine, there’s a lot going on in there so I will be busy for a while.
My current body of work, The Weirdo Series, is essentially a biographical narrative about my place in this world. As a diehard nonconformist, a consequence of my catholic, Latino, patriarchal upbringing, I find myself in a place where I am the exception and not the norm among other women of my age. With no children or husband, but a bunch of little yapping dogs, I have inherited the position of eccentric spinster in my hood. Such is life and my choice to embrace my place means I can more easily step away from the confines of society and have my say.
I am increasingly disturbed by our disconnection with environmental and social issues. The two are intimately combined and our lack of sensitivity ensures we are moving in the wrong direction. My work aims to discover the place of the werido/outcast/anomaly in all of this and how the idea of contrast is actually a unifying paradigm in life as well as art. Normal vs abnormal, natural landscape vs urban cityscape, cool colors vs warm colors, organic shapes vs geometric shapes, and inside vs outside are some of the dualities I try to address in my work. The organic weirdo ‘creatures’ are now morphing with my more graphic environmental works and I find myself at an exciting crossroads with my sculpture, one I am dedicated to seeing come to fruition.
Bio
Jennifer Torres was born in Queens, NY and spent her childhood in Teaneck, NJ. She did her first four years of studio training as a teenager at the Art Students League in New York City and got her BFA at the Cooper Union, also in NYC. After graduating from Cooper she trained as a fine cabinetmaker in New England, and then got her MFA in Sculpture at the University of Georgia in Athens.
Ms. Torres has lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for 20 years where she has her studio and teaches sculpture at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She has had many exhibits of her sculptures and installations around the country and has won a number of awards and commissions.
