Jennifer Wright
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
Birmingham School of Art
- Email:
- jenny.wright@bcu.ac.uk
- Phone:
- 0121 331 5975
Jennifer Wright is an artist and Senior Lecturer, teaching on B.A. (Hons.) and M.A. Fine Art programmes at the School of Art, Birmingham City University but also visiting and examining other Fine Art course in England and Holland.
Originally trained as a painter, Jennifer has exhibited both in the UK and internationally since graduating from the M.A. Fine Art course at Birmingham.
Following the completion of her postgraduate studies Jennifer took up the position of teaching fellow at Cheltenham College of Art. At the end of her time as a teaching fellow, Jennifer moved to London and took up residency in the famous enclave for artists in Beck Road, London, run by the ACME housing association, where she continued developing her work. This period of practice focused on the decorative and related to debates concerning gender and art, and feminist critiques of history and art history. Influences at this time included the Pattern and Decoration movement from America, Roccoco silk designs (specifically the impossible-to-realise designs of William Kilburn in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection) and the work of Anna Garthwaite. This lead to Jennifer producing works exploring decorative designs as hybridization of animal, plant and marine forms as metaphors for the complex plurality of feminine identity.
Jennifer developed an expanded art practice that included site-specific installation addressing design and pattern in domestic interiors. She was co-founder and co-curator of The Pattern Lab, an artist collective researching the history and application of pattern in art and design with a focus on textiles and concern for working with archives of different kinds. A number of Pattern Lab projects involved installations in historical buildings famed as examples of important architecture. Jennifer developed this interest in installation in solo work, often making use of specific features and qualities of light in exhibition sites. Specifically she begun to use window graphics, a commercial process. More recently, Jennifer has continued her interest developed through Pattern Lab addressing the ways in which the digital and digitalized processes use and transform pattern. In particular, this research addresses how such processes are used in or shape contemporary domestic environments. Her work involves using a variety of media, investigating how various processes translate images or information differently. Research into contemporary technology has also lead to an investigation of mediums and media from the past, continuing her interest in archival material and developing her interest in media archaeology. The book outlining and exploring idea of media archaeology by Siegfried Zielinski titled Deep Time of Media has been an important influence on Jennifer’s thinking, as has the work of Hito Steyrl and the book The Virtual Window: from Alberti to Microsoft by Anne Friedberg.
Jennifer has works in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum London and The Whitworth Museum and Art Gallery Manchester. She is also cited in a number of publications including the Black Dog Books publication Contemporary Textiles The Fabric of Fine Art, a survey of contemporary practices addressing art and textiles and the Victoria and Albert Museum Publication titled Print Now.