Jennifer
Viviano
Jennifer Viviano grew up in northern Nevada and has lived her adult life in western Oregon, with her current studio practice in Portland. She holds an MFA in Applied Craft and Design, a collaborative program between Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, and a BA from Willamette University. Viviano was the 2019 winner of the Sager Braudis Gallery Exhibition Award at the annual, national juried exhibit, Paper in Particular. She brings to the February Exhibit a body of work made by creating pools of gouache on paper. Once the medium has dried, she rubs graphite into the surface to create an atmosphere around the painted areas. The gouache both lifts off to some degree and resists the graphite, making luminous shapes that become the foreground of the drawings, and she then actively marks with a sharp point around select areas to highlight, shade, or connect the forms. This cultivation of chance allows her media to dictate a response, so that each piece is a communication between artist and materials. Working with substances based in geology–graphite, porcelain, mineral-based paint–symbolically grounds the work for Viviano, who ultimately wants to encourage a new depth of perception for both herself and her viewer.
