COURTESY OF JENNIFER KROLL
ARTS&LIFE ART
Paintings that
Pop
Artist Jennifer Kroll makes a statement with her bold, colorful creations. ROBIN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Clockwise: Jennifer Kroll with a piece from her “Barcode” collection. Four canvases create a “Fair & Square” design. Six of Kroll’s paintings brighten a wall.
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he brightens the world and lights up room after room with her abstract, geometric paintings. Artist Jennifer Kroll of Birmingham is about as bold as you can get when it comes to color — she’ll put purple next to bright orange or align yellow, hot pink and blue without batting an eye. And somehow, every color combination works, from pops of neon green to navy to aqua blue. “I’m fascinated by colors and shapes, and I love experimenting with different combinations of the two,” she says. “My paintings are often the result of these explorations. Sometimes new ideas happen by accident as I mix colors and move lines.” Kroll started her business, Jennifer Kroll
Fine Art, in 2018. She was churning out eye-catching acrylic paintings on canvas in her home studio as a hobby when her husband, Todd, urged her to post a picture on social media. She did, and orders and inquiries started pouring in. Her paintings are now in homes and commercial buildings across the world from Australia to California, Florida and Washington, D.C. The Jewish student organization, Hillel, recently commissioned six large paintings that will hang in a new, modern building at George Washington University in D.C., where her oldest daughter, Lilley, attends college. Her younger daughter, Marlee, 17, is graduating from Frankel Jewish Academy this year.
“I can’t believe I’m able to do something I love and make a business doing it,” Kroll says. “I’ve had a lot of commissions during COVID-19. No two paintings [or sets of paintings] are the same.” Kroll and her family attend Temple Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield. She is a graduate of Groves High School in Beverly Hills and holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Eastern Michigan University. In college, she studied fiber arts and tried several other mediums. The one thing she never worked with was acrylic paint. Today, that’s her go-to product for laying color on thick. “I like solid colors, and I don’t like to see any brush strokes,” she says. “Depending on the design and size of the canvas, it can continued on page 38 APRIL 1 • 2021
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