GALLERY GUIDE Between the Covers: Works by Jane Kent
GALLERY GUIDE
Jane Kent, Why I Write Poetry, 2023
“Jane Kent draws to discover things, to figure things out. She doesn’t want “the first thing” that comes to mind, she wants the thing around the corner, unseen and unimagined until you’ve made the requisite numbers of turns.”
– Susan Tallman, Jane Kent and Major Jackson, Winter/Endless (2018), Art in Print
Artist and educator Jane Kent is best known for her drawings, prints, and artist’s books. Drawing is central to Jane Kent’s creative practice. Beginning with an everyday object—a clock, lamp, or mirror—the artist works through numerous and varied iterations as she uncovers odd and unforeseen worlds. For Kent, drawing is a means to create visual connections and to move from what is “imagined” to what is “made.”
Between the Covers: Works by Jane Kent features artist’s books, broadsheets, prints, and working drawings created by the artist in collaboration with six authors over the past 25 years. Here, Kent’s artist’s books are shown together with a selection of working drawings for the first time. Each project incorporates text written by a distinguished poet or writer: Privacy, 1999 (Richard Ford); The Orchid Thief Re-imagined, 2003 (Susan Orlean); Skating, 2011 (Richard Ford); Untitled, 2015 (Dorothea Grossman); The Flaneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail, 2019 (Major Jackson); and Little Albert, 2023 (Joyce Carol Oates).
For Between the Covers, Kent debuts working drawings for her current collaborative project with Major Jackson, Why I Write Poetry, forthcoming from The Grenfell Press in 2025. Dividing her time between Burlington and New York City, Jane Kent is Professor of Studio Art, School of the Arts, at the University of Vermont.
—Heather Ferrell, Curator and Director of Exhibitions
Jane Kent/Joyce Carol Oates, Little Albert, 2023, Published by Grenfell Press, NY
ARTIST STATEMENT
You never know when or where you will have your artistic interests thrown, moved or sparked.
I was introduced to the category of artwork known as artists’ books (Matisse’s Jazz for one) at the Lessing J. Rosenwald Print Study Center in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Mr. Rosenwald introduced the artists’ books in his collection to the group of students. Upon entering the Study Center, we were directed to a bathroom to wash our hands then led to a room where the walls were lined with copper sheeting to view the prints on a long table. Mr. Rosenwald, an older man, showed the group of 20-year olds artists’ books by William Blake, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Marcel Duchamp, among many others.
In 1994, Richard Ford (whom I had met while we were both teaching at Princeton University) gave me one of his stories and we agreed to do a project, which Leslie Miller of Grenfell Press agreed to publish. I read Richard’s story over and over and went to work doing what I knew how to do—to make multiple drawings, to immerse myself in the effort, and to figure out how to make this project by drawing about word and image in a non-illustrative way. I did this for several years until I had amassed a large body of work from which I could select images and begin to build the etchings. Leslie Miller advised me to make the images and she would design the text to be printed directly onto the image sheets. So began a long working relationship.
Collaboration takes many forms. I have been part of the field of printmaking all my working life. I have worked with a variety of people in a variety of capacities, which includes fine art publishers, artists, printers, writers and poets in order to make work I haven’t seen myself make before.
The challenge to make visible the ineffable quality of what is imagined into what is ‘made’ is the real subject of my work in all its forms: addressed from image to image, and over and over again.
—Jane Kent
Jane Kent/Susan Orlean, Orchid Thief Re-Imagined, 2003, BCA installation
ARTIST BIO
Jane Kent (b 1952, NY, NY) received her BFA from University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA. Kent’s solo exhibitions include the International Print Biennale, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK; CG Boerner, NY; International Print Center of New York, NY; and the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS. Select awards include the Barbara and Thomas Putnam Fellowship, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH; Yaddo Artists’ Fellowship, Saratoga Springs, NY; and the National Endowment for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship. Kent’s work is found in public collections including Rare Books Division and the Prints Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, NY; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Print and Word Collection, Victoria And Albert Museum, London, UK; Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, CT; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Dividing her time between Burlington and New York City, Jane Kent is Professor of Studio Art, School of the Arts, at the University of Vermont.
CHECKLIST
JANE KENT/RICHARD FORD
Privacy, 1999 etching and letterpress (19/35) 15 x 10.5 inches
Published by Grenfell Press, NY
JANE KENT/SUSAN ORLEAN
Orchid Thief Re-Imagined, 2003 silkscreen and letterpress on Somerset paper 15 x 10 inches ea.
Co-published with the Rhode Island School of Design and Grenfell Press, NY
Untitled, 2015 offset lithograph, edition 1000 24 X 18 inches
JANE KENT/MAJOR JACKSON
The Flâneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail, 2019, 2nd version 5 color lithograph and hand drawn polymer text plate printed on letterpress on Gampi paper 23.5 X 18 inches
Co-published by Grenfell Press, NY and Jungle Press, Brooklyn, NY
JANE KENT/ JOYCE CAROL OATES
Little Albert, 2023 sewn in wrappers and housed in paper envelope; printed silkscreen and digital, text-printed letterpress on antique Whatman paper
22 x 15 inches
Published by Grenfell Press, NY
WALL INSTALLATION OF WORKING DRAWINGS
for Privacy, The Orchid Thief ReImagined, Skating, Untitled, The Flâneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail, Little Albert, and Why I Write Poetry 1999-2024
gouache, ink, monoprint, and working proofs
8 x 16 feet overall individual works various dimensions
Wall Installation includes Individual Prints by Jane Kent:
Endless XI, 2018 cut paper stencil monotype 11 x 8.5 inches
Published by Aspinwall Editions, NY
Looking Glass, 2022
silkscreen and archival inkjet print
16 X 20 inches
Published by Lower Eastside Printshop, NY
7am, 2022
silkscreen and archival inkjet print 11 x 8.5 inches
Published by Lower Eastside Printshop, NY
Portrait of A Friend, 2015
silkscreen in 9 colors, edition 35 26.5 x 32 inches
Published by the Artist
Printed by Eric Hogan at Lower Eastside Printshop, NY
Unless otherwise indicated all works are Courtesy of the Artist
Working Drawings are Price upon Request
RELATED PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Kent/Major Jackson,
A CONVERSATION WITH JANE KENT AND MAJOR JACKSON
Tuesday, October 22, 2024, 6-7:30 pm
BCA Center, 2nd floor, LBG Room Zoom option available (visit BCA’s website to register)
Jane Kent and Major Jackson discuss the benefits and challenges of collaborating across image and text and their current project, Why I Write Poetry, forthcoming from The Grenfell Press, NY, in 2025. Sponsored in part by The Mollie Ruprecht Fund for Visual Art, University of Vermont, and by Vermont Humanities.
TOUR OF BETWEEN THE COVERS: WORKS BY JANE KENT
Saturday, November 2, 2024, from 11am – Noon
BCA Center, Second Floor
Led by Heather Ferrell, Curator & Director of Exhibitions Register for the tour at Green Mountain Book Festival
Tour Jane Kent’s exhibition, Between the Covers, and learn more about the processes and ideas behind her prints and artist’s books. Presented in partnership with the Green Mountain Book Festival
FAMILY ART SATURDAY
Saturday, January 25, 2025, 11am - 1pm
BCA Center, Fourth Floor Studio
Get creative and make art together! Join BCA for a drop-in artmaking activity inspired by the prints and drawings of Jane Kent. Participants will create their own unique prints combining different printmaking processes.
Jane
The Flâneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail, 2019
Between the Covers: Works by Jane Kent is supported in part by the Maslow Family Foundation. Hospitality sponsor, Lake Champlain Chocolates. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
