About _________________________________________________________________________
Jennifer Shada’s watercolors examine textiles for their inherent marking of culture, style and personal narrative. Exclusively painting fabric at rest in undefined space, she draws attention to the origin and function of the material. Like a gazing ball; the frozen, suspended textiles give reflection to the threads uniting our collective past, present and future.
In addition to studies of textiles, Shada examines how mundane objects transform from ordinary to extraordinary; asking how specific objects make us feel closer to a time, person or place; something that is no longer tangible. Does this transformation happen onto an object or does it happen within ourselves- the object remaining ordinary to anyone else?
Simultaneously, in a small series in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Shada creates contour drawings of small businesses in San Francisco, forced into closure. The shaky line drawings, painted with a value range of Payne's Grey watercolor, mirror the uncertainty and instability of the local [global] crisis, highlighted by outlines of sheets of plywood that cover and protect doors and windows from vandalism in the city. The paintings feel somber and reflect the mood of the current, collective experience.
Bio:
Jennifer Shada (b. 1988) is a Bay Area visual artist living in Cotati, California. After spending the summer studying at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in 2010, Shada received her B.F.A. at Sonoma State University in 2011. She continued her education at California College of the Arts and earned her M.F.A. in 2016. Shada has exhibited both locally and nationally including The Vast Lab in Los Angeles, the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana and in a “high altitude” exhibition in New York City, New York.
Shada works with Sterling Graphics Vinyl Company in San Francisco installing vinyl graphics at the Legion of Honor, the De Young Museum, the Academy of Sciences and SFMoMA. In 2015, Shada co-founded artist collective ONE + ONE + TWO, aiming to bridge the gap between individual artists with resources in the Bay Area such as residency, critique and exhibition opportunities. She has worked as a studio assistant for artists Mario Pires Cordeiro, Nellie King Solomon as well as assisted Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in painting her “Supergraphics”. Since the pandemic, Shada has moved her studio from the American Industrial Building in San Francisco to her home in Cotati, CA, where she teaches painting and drawing at Santa Rosa Junior College and Napa Valley College.
