Copyright Š 2017 Jennifer Moses All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author. Printed in the United States of America
www.jennifermoses.com
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in dedication to my mom and dad... and son, will
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the urge to capture a moment. paint and eyes as the net. so much fleeting beauty. searching, she reflects the world back to itself. harvesting and returning. the culmination of this is that we get to see through hers'.
~ Christopher P. Kirkegaard
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contents 1 foreword Michael Zakian Director, Frederick R. Museum of Art 3 lit from within Jennifer Moses 5 plates 49 mission series 57 firework series 71 sepia series 77 location sketches 109 chronology 119 exhibitions and awards 123 index of plates 129 acknowledgments
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foreword Jennifer Moses takes our temporal, everyday world and turns our experiences of nature into memorable, timeless images. Her art is about transience and change but, more importantly, about permanence and stability. She calms nature, slows it to a manageable pace, and in the process allows us to appreciate both its breadth and depth. When viewing her landscapes, I am always filled with a sense of peace, tranquility and comforting beauty. Her style can be called tonalist. As a movement, tonalism first appeared in the last decades of the nineteenth century and saw its first full flowering in the English Aesthetic Movement, led by expatriate James Abbott McNeil Whistler, and in the poetic, atmospheric landscapes of the late Hudson River School master George Inness. Seeking Beauty in the name of Art, these artists sought to elevate what we saw into higher, timeless ideals. Their solution was to ignore small details and focus on the large masses of their subjects, designing simple areas of related, muted colors into artful, abstract shapes. As seen in Moses’ art, this style strikes an engaging balance between the realistic and the abstract, seeming to present an illusion of reality while at the same time appearing to be lush passages of paint. Because the early tonalists developed from Barbizon painting, historic examples are often dark, brown, and brooding, as seen in the work of the early California tonalists Charles Rollo Peters and Gottardo Piazzoni. Moses’ paintings, however, are full of light. Light permeates her compositions, filling her scenes with a sustained, persistent glow. I like to think of Jennifer Moses as a true master of light. How she sees, captures, and interprets light is key to her gifts as an artist. She has the ability to take light—something intangible and insubstantial—and translate it into solid passages of dense paint. At times light appears as a hint or glimmer, emerging from a setting sun or peaking around an outcropping of rocks. Other times, light is a broad, sustained field engulfing an entire scene. Through her handling of light, she invites us to contemplate that essential mystery of time: of how things change and how they stay the same. Her range as a landscape painter can be seen in the series she has explored throughout her career. Her Mission series captures her deep love for the land and history of California. Her Fireworks series pays homage to and expands upon Whistler’s historic explorations of the theme. In her Location Sketches, studies done en plein air, we see her first thoughts as a painter and her ability to take raw visual experience and translate it into something both enduring and artistic. This book is a testament to a career devoted to the art of landscape painting and to the joy that her art brings to the world. Michael Zakian, Director Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Pepperdine University
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lit from within It is the essence of a place that is at the core of my work. I often find that I am drawn to the intimate aspects of a landscape; a moment, a gesture or a specific feeling that unfolds when I’m quiet. I may walk around or sit for a period of time until that quality revels itself and only then do I begin to paint. I have often wondered, while waiting to be hit by inspiration, where does it originate? The external environment? The personal internal creative being? Or is it a symbiotic relationship that happens simultaneously. While the external allows for a vast array of possibilities and may spark inspiration, it seems to me that it is the individual contemplative state that identifies and then translates that personal observation into something to share. My paintings are an expression of my experiences and I find myself on a never-ending journey of inquiry and observation. As the observer, I witness what is before me and as the artist, I translate what I see and feel onto the canvas. The process for me is a celebration of beauty and the interrelatedness of all things. My greatest desire is to communicate that connection through the visual poetry of painting. Jennifer Moses
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plates
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On Location in Malibu, 2012 Frederick R. Weisman Museum PLATE 1
First Light, Point Dume, 2012 10 x 10 inches oil on canvas California
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100th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, California Art Club, 2011 Pasadena Museum of California Art PLATE 2
Her Ethereal Veil, 2010 20 x 22 inches oil on canvas Channel Islands
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PLATE 3
Winter Abundance, 2014 16 x 17 inches oil on canvas Colorado
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PLATE 4
By Lofty Design, 2013 28 x 30 inches oil on canvas Channel Islands
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103rd Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, California Art Club, 2014 Autry Museum of the American West PLATE 7
Fire & Ice, 2013 10 x 10 inches oil on canvas Colorado
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103rd Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, California Art Club, 2014 Autry Museum of the American West PLATE 8
Blushing Twilight, 2014 40 x 44 inches oil on canvas California Edgar Payne Award for Best Landscape
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PLATE 9
Nimbus, 2016 18 x 19 inches oil on canvas California
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PLATE 10
Evening Pillar, 2016 18 x 19 inches oil on canvas California
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PLATE 11
Fall Shadows, 2016 40 x 20 inches oil on canvas California
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PLATE 12
The Clearing, 2016 30 x 32 inches oil on canvas California
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PLATE 23
Twilight Escort I, 2016 12 x 20 inches oil on linen California
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PLATE 24
Scratching the Sky, 2016 12 x 20 inches oil on canvas California
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Empathy for Beauty in the 21st Century, 2014 Carnegie Art Museum PLATE 27
Old Veteran, Point Lobos, 2013 20 x 22 inches oil on canvas California
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