Profile

Jennifer is a Canadian hand and machine embroiderer. Her textile works incorporate second-hand textiles. She is concerned with the transience of the human experience and the capacity of cloth and clothing to express this fragility and vulnerability. 

Jennifer’s art practice focuses almost exclusively on hand embroidery. When hand stitching, she deliberately uses a limited range of stitches, exploring the wealth of possibilities that this restricted repertoire offers. Handmade textiles such as lace, crocheted doilies and embroidered domestic linens figure prominently in her work, as rescuing these relics from the dustbin, and giving them a second life is incredibly important to her. They act as her starting point, a blank canvas onto which another layer of meaning can be added. By incorporating them into her work, she acknowledges and seeks to promote an awareness of those women who were tasked to fill idle moments and to beautify their homes with these delicate objects which are becoming increasingly irrelevant in contemporary society.

She is drawn to the aesthetics of stark contrasts which she expresses through the juxtaposition of dissimilar materials such as rough wool against fine crochetwork, rusted metal next to lace, beeswax on linen and birchbark with muslin. When not spending time in her studio, she enjoys experiencing the beauty of nature in the hills near to her home, running the trails or cross-country skiing.