| The New York Optimist November 2008 |
JENNIFER AVELON
INTERVIEW by Neil Patrick Parent, Esq.
On entering Jennifer Avelon’s show last week at the Sun Gallery on West 22nd Street, we were
immediately surrounded by a group of seductive women, dressed provocatively and gesturing boldly
with their eyes, “Come hither - if you dare!” These women lined the walls and fairly leapt off of the
canvasses that constrained them, an effect aided by the brilliant use of found materials, such as
patterned fabrics, jewelry, clothing, fur and hair, giving three dimensions to the large acrylic paintings
– most of them 4’X4’ or 4’X5’.
www.JenniferAvelon.com
The well-rendered, coquettish women in these overtly sexual paintings spoke directly and
unashamedly to the viewers, challenging them to shed their inhibitions and join in what promised to be
a memorable and enjoyable romp. While Avelon, the woman that painted them, although stunningly
attractive, dressed in a striking black gown of shiny material and plenty of décolleté, appeared to back
up the challenge posed by her creations, upon speaking to her we found her to be a highly intelligent,
professionally disciplined and grounded young woman, quite at odds with the sex kittens on the walls.
So intriguing did we find the contrast, that we asked for the interview that follows:
Optimist: Have you always wanted to be or have been a working artist, or did you have any other
kind of goal, job or career?
Avelon: I had quite a successful career in corporate marketing and sales in New York and later in
Colorado, and I ran an entertainment booking and talent business focusing on dancers and organizing
corporate parties and entertainment events. I myself danced for a while.
Optimist: Where were you born and brought up?
Avelon: I was born in Virginia, but was mostly brought up in Rockville, Maryland.
Optimist: You went to college in the Midwest. How did you come to find yourself in New York?
Avelon: Right. Well, when I graduated from high school, I considered going to art school and had
several scholarships offered to me, but I opted for building a more stable financial future, so I
attended the University of Miami in Ohio. Although I took studio art courses throughout my four
years there, I majored in Business and Marketing. My senior internship was with a corporate
marketing division for an Information Technology Firm. It turned into a full-time job here in New
York. I lived in the City for about two years and then I relocated to Denver. Two years later, I started
an entertainment company that booked and trained dancers. I danced professionally, too and
performed with my team at dance festivals featuring talent from around the world for crowds as large
as 15,000. I occasionally still arrange dance events and corporate parties. I’ve done a lot of work with
corporate clients such as Maxim and Coors as well as the Global Dance Festival for the past 5 years.
A couple of years ago, I decided to move back to New York. Shortly afterwards I was asked to
illustrate a graphic novel, as purely a business proposition. When that project was finished, I woke up
one day and asked myself, “Why aren’t you painting?” I realized I was missing my “true calling”. It
was then I determined to devote most of my time to my art and worked for about a year to build a
portfolio of work large and strong enough to support a one-woman show, which is what you have
just seen.
INTERVIEW by Neil Patrick Parent, Esq.
On entering Jennifer Avelon’s show last week at the Sun Gallery on West 22nd Street, we were
immediately surrounded by a group of seductive women, dressed provocatively and gesturing boldly
with their eyes, “Come hither - if you dare!” These women lined the walls and fairly leapt off of the
canvasses that constrained them, an effect aided by the brilliant use of found materials, such as
patterned fabrics, jewelry, clothing, fur and hair, giving three dimensions to the large acrylic paintings
– most of them 4’X4’ or 4’X5’.
www.JenniferAvelon.com
The well-rendered, coquettish women in these overtly sexual paintings spoke directly and
unashamedly to the viewers, challenging them to shed their inhibitions and join in what promised to be
a memorable and enjoyable romp. While Avelon, the woman that painted them, although stunningly
attractive, dressed in a striking black gown of shiny material and plenty of décolleté, appeared to back
up the challenge posed by her creations, upon speaking to her we found her to be a highly intelligent,
professionally disciplined and grounded young woman, quite at odds with the sex kittens on the walls.
So intriguing did we find the contrast, that we asked for the interview that follows:
Optimist: Have you always wanted to be or have been a working artist, or did you have any other
kind of goal, job or career?
Avelon: I had quite a successful career in corporate marketing and sales in New York and later in
Colorado, and I ran an entertainment booking and talent business focusing on dancers and organizing
corporate parties and entertainment events. I myself danced for a while.
Optimist: Where were you born and brought up?
Avelon: I was born in Virginia, but was mostly brought up in Rockville, Maryland.
Optimist: You went to college in the Midwest. How did you come to find yourself in New York?
Avelon: Right. Well, when I graduated from high school, I considered going to art school and had
several scholarships offered to me, but I opted for building a more stable financial future, so I
attended the University of Miami in Ohio. Although I took studio art courses throughout my four
years there, I majored in Business and Marketing. My senior internship was with a corporate
marketing division for an Information Technology Firm. It turned into a full-time job here in New
York. I lived in the City for about two years and then I relocated to Denver. Two years later, I started
an entertainment company that booked and trained dancers. I danced professionally, too and
performed with my team at dance festivals featuring talent from around the world for crowds as large
as 15,000. I occasionally still arrange dance events and corporate parties. I’ve done a lot of work with
corporate clients such as Maxim and Coors as well as the Global Dance Festival for the past 5 years.
A couple of years ago, I decided to move back to New York. Shortly afterwards I was asked to
illustrate a graphic novel, as purely a business proposition. When that project was finished, I woke up
one day and asked myself, “Why aren’t you painting?” I realized I was missing my “true calling”. It
was then I determined to devote most of my time to my art and worked for about a year to build a
portfolio of work large and strong enough to support a one-woman show, which is what you have
just seen.
Optimist: Your artistic style and subject matter are very distinctive. How did you evolve as an artist? If we looked at your work from five years ago, say,
what differences would we notice?
Avelon: You probably would have seen the beginnings of this. I knew I needed to refine my figure work, so I took figure drawing and painting classes at SVA. I
also took filmmaking courses. And I wanted to be up on the latest technologies to help me with the paintings so I also took courses at FIT in computer
graphics. So back then you would have seen sketches and studies that have evolved into these paintings.
Optimist: There seem to be two major things going on with your work: the use and integration into the paintings of found objects, such as patterned fabrics,
fur, actual articles of clothing such as underwear, etc; and the distinctive subject matter, sensual and sexually provocative female figures. Which came first:
Your use of mixed media or the subject matter?
Avelon: The mixed media are very important and would have always been a part of anything I did. I keep a notebook where I list, as they occur to me, ideas for
objects or situations that I would like to see or use in paintings. I also collect, and keep in the book swatches of fabrics and photographs that I want to use.
When I’m planning a painting, it’s often the materials that drive the image. I love it when I can present ordinary things that get overlooked or lost in the
backgrounds of our lives as art.
As for the subject matter, it speaks to me from experience, my work with dancers and understanding the power of sexuality that females have.
Optimist: The dimensions of the work seem quite important, very large formats, three or four feet square, two even 4’X5’. Why is this important to you?
Would the paintings make the same statements in smaller formats? Larger ones?
Avelon: I think the size is very important. I feel constrained in smaller formats, and though there are some smaller ones in the show, I’ve grown them over
time. I need the size to have the impact that these girls give. It’s not so much that they need to surround you, but they need to be more your size to speak to
you one-on-one the way they do. In fact, I even feel constrained in these sizes. I work in my one-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, which pretty much
limits me to the 4’X4’, 5’X4’ canvasses. I’m moving to a new studio next year where I will be able to do larger works. There is one I am planning, it may not
appear for a couple of years, maybe even five years down the line, that will be triple the size of these.
Optimist: How do you plan a painting? Do you do preliminary sketches or studies? Since you use photographs in addition to models and for your work, is there
a hint of Madison Avenue in the paintings. Are they inspired at all by advertisements we might see in Vogue for perfume or lingerie?
Avelon: Well, I’ve shown you my notebook. (She has shown a thick notebook, pages bulging with sketches, studies, fabric swatches and photos, some from
her own camera, some
what differences would we notice?
Avelon: You probably would have seen the beginnings of this. I knew I needed to refine my figure work, so I took figure drawing and painting classes at SVA. I
also took filmmaking courses. And I wanted to be up on the latest technologies to help me with the paintings so I also took courses at FIT in computer
graphics. So back then you would have seen sketches and studies that have evolved into these paintings.
Optimist: There seem to be two major things going on with your work: the use and integration into the paintings of found objects, such as patterned fabrics,
fur, actual articles of clothing such as underwear, etc; and the distinctive subject matter, sensual and sexually provocative female figures. Which came first:
Your use of mixed media or the subject matter?
Avelon: The mixed media are very important and would have always been a part of anything I did. I keep a notebook where I list, as they occur to me, ideas for
objects or situations that I would like to see or use in paintings. I also collect, and keep in the book swatches of fabrics and photographs that I want to use.
When I’m planning a painting, it’s often the materials that drive the image. I love it when I can present ordinary things that get overlooked or lost in the
backgrounds of our lives as art.
As for the subject matter, it speaks to me from experience, my work with dancers and understanding the power of sexuality that females have.
Optimist: The dimensions of the work seem quite important, very large formats, three or four feet square, two even 4’X5’. Why is this important to you?
Would the paintings make the same statements in smaller formats? Larger ones?
Avelon: I think the size is very important. I feel constrained in smaller formats, and though there are some smaller ones in the show, I’ve grown them over
time. I need the size to have the impact that these girls give. It’s not so much that they need to surround you, but they need to be more your size to speak to
you one-on-one the way they do. In fact, I even feel constrained in these sizes. I work in my one-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, which pretty much
limits me to the 4’X4’, 5’X4’ canvasses. I’m moving to a new studio next year where I will be able to do larger works. There is one I am planning, it may not
appear for a couple of years, maybe even five years down the line, that will be triple the size of these.
Optimist: How do you plan a painting? Do you do preliminary sketches or studies? Since you use photographs in addition to models and for your work, is there
a hint of Madison Avenue in the paintings. Are they inspired at all by advertisements we might see in Vogue for perfume or lingerie?
Avelon: Well, I’ve shown you my notebook. (She has shown a thick notebook, pages bulging with sketches, studies, fabric swatches and photos, some from
her own camera, some
clipped from magazines.) This one is only for paintings. I keep another for drawings and other
work.
See, here are the studies for “Stairs and Stitches”. It probably all started with this mannequin arm
that I somehow acquired and has been sitting around my apartment for years. I love mannequins!
So I began to think about a girl/mannequin dismembered and sewn back up. And here is a swatch
of the death’s head pattern cloth that forms the floor in the painting. Here are some newspaper
clippings. The walls in the painting are covered with actual clippings of help-wanted ads and
obituaries.
Now this page shows the beginnings of the painting itself. I photograph myself doing the pose and
photo-reference the outlines of the figure in Photoshop. I place that among the materials and the
settings and then elaborate through sketches like these.
Unlike “Stairs and Stitches”, which is pretty un-glamorous, other paintings like “The White Jacket”
or “Lounging In Lavender” really do reflect the commercial sensibilities of luxury goods
advertising. I Love it!
Optimist: Were there any major influences or sources of inspiration for your work? Have you
seen the pin-up illustrations of the thirties and forties by artists like Vargas, for instance, or the
sexploitation films of Russ Meyer?
Avelon: Oh, definitely! I love the Russ Meyer’s movie “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” And we talked
about those Madison Avenue images. But it’s mostly the dancers and the entertainers and their
relationships with men that inspired this series.
Optimist: Is there social commentary in the work? Are you celebrating sex or parodying it?
Avelon: Oh, definitely celebrating it! I see these girls in their plush, luxury surroundings, they are
comfortable in their own space. They’re powerful. They’re happy to be there. It’s a good thing.
You know I get jealous of them. I complain that these girls lounge around all the time, not working
while I slave away to create them. They get all my best lingerie! They are this little community of
Barbie Dolls and they mock me!
Optimist: Even though some people might find the overt sexuality in the paintings disturbing,
they are really quite restrained, aren’t they? There’s little actual nudity; it’s the postures and,
ironically, the clothing that provoke (you mentioned using your best underwear in the paintings.)
Since these women can be said to be perceived as sexual objects, how do women, more
importantly feminists, react to your work?
Avelon: Women love them. These girls are sexualized, but they are empowered! Everything is on
their terms. I haven’t gotten any complaints from feminists. I AM a feminist!
Optimist: There is a lot of “fun” in your work, “naughty fun”. The girls are not demure; they
are “bad girls”. Is that a reflection of your personality? Crossing lines, daring to defy? What about
you as a person can we deduce from your artwork?
work.
See, here are the studies for “Stairs and Stitches”. It probably all started with this mannequin arm
that I somehow acquired and has been sitting around my apartment for years. I love mannequins!
So I began to think about a girl/mannequin dismembered and sewn back up. And here is a swatch
of the death’s head pattern cloth that forms the floor in the painting. Here are some newspaper
clippings. The walls in the painting are covered with actual clippings of help-wanted ads and
obituaries.
Now this page shows the beginnings of the painting itself. I photograph myself doing the pose and
photo-reference the outlines of the figure in Photoshop. I place that among the materials and the
settings and then elaborate through sketches like these.
Unlike “Stairs and Stitches”, which is pretty un-glamorous, other paintings like “The White Jacket”
or “Lounging In Lavender” really do reflect the commercial sensibilities of luxury goods
advertising. I Love it!
Optimist: Were there any major influences or sources of inspiration for your work? Have you
seen the pin-up illustrations of the thirties and forties by artists like Vargas, for instance, or the
sexploitation films of Russ Meyer?
Avelon: Oh, definitely! I love the Russ Meyer’s movie “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” And we talked
about those Madison Avenue images. But it’s mostly the dancers and the entertainers and their
relationships with men that inspired this series.
Optimist: Is there social commentary in the work? Are you celebrating sex or parodying it?
Avelon: Oh, definitely celebrating it! I see these girls in their plush, luxury surroundings, they are
comfortable in their own space. They’re powerful. They’re happy to be there. It’s a good thing.
You know I get jealous of them. I complain that these girls lounge around all the time, not working
while I slave away to create them. They get all my best lingerie! They are this little community of
Barbie Dolls and they mock me!
Optimist: Even though some people might find the overt sexuality in the paintings disturbing,
they are really quite restrained, aren’t they? There’s little actual nudity; it’s the postures and,
ironically, the clothing that provoke (you mentioned using your best underwear in the paintings.)
Since these women can be said to be perceived as sexual objects, how do women, more
importantly feminists, react to your work?
Avelon: Women love them. These girls are sexualized, but they are empowered! Everything is on
their terms. I haven’t gotten any complaints from feminists. I AM a feminist!
Optimist: There is a lot of “fun” in your work, “naughty fun”. The girls are not demure; they
are “bad girls”. Is that a reflection of your personality? Crossing lines, daring to defy? What about
you as a person can we deduce from your artwork?
Avelon: Well, I would not say I’m conventional. I do things and have done things that most people would consider daring. The dancing, the work with
Maxxim and parties I’ve organized for them and others at clubs like Mansion. I think sex is wonderful and fun and nudity, even though there’s not really that
much of it in my paintings, is a natural state.
Optimist: Your prints and drawings seem significantly different that your paintings. They are much more restrained and sober, even contemplative. Is there
another artist within you at work in those media?
Avelon: Well, my black and white work does seem to be darker. I want to do more. I want to do some very large woodcuts. But they lend themselves to
different subject matters.
Optimist: Where in the City do you live? What made you choose that neighborhood? Is there anything about where you live, the neighborhood or the actual
living space that we could see reflected in your work?
Avelon: I live in Hell’s Kitchen now, but I’ve lived all over the City, the Lower East Side, Upper West Side. The whole City is just so full of energy. That’s
what brought me back here from Colorado. I happen to live in this neighborhood because it’s down the block from my Aunt’s apartment, and I was staying
there for a while before I found my own apartment. It does have lots of great restaurants and it’s right in the theater district so there’s always a lot going on.
Optimist: What other interests do you have outside of art?
Avelon: Well, it might sound strange, but I’m very interested in Quantum Physics. I read a lot about it. You know there are things that go on at the molecular
level that are incredible. There have even been experiments done where human emotions can affect the structure and condition of common molecules like
hydrogen and oxygen. And there’s my business, the party organizing, the dancing. I still love all of that.
Optimist: What are your ambitions as an artist? Where do you see your work going in five years?
Avelon: I hope to show and sell more paintings. Parts of this show are moving to London next week for an exhibit at the Lennox Gallery and I’m having a
private show in late spring/ early summer which will be listed on my website.
I’ve already mentioned my plans for future paintings, larger ones, and the woodcuts I’d like to do.
I’ve been approached by several people recently to do portraits on a commissioned basis. They get to pick the objects and materials for inclusion in their
portraits from personal items or things they like. I will follow them around photographing them as they go about their life for a while and then I will choose the
setting and the pose. They’ll have to go with my choice on that.
Optimist: Thanks, Jennifer, for spending this time with us.
Maxxim and parties I’ve organized for them and others at clubs like Mansion. I think sex is wonderful and fun and nudity, even though there’s not really that
much of it in my paintings, is a natural state.
Optimist: Your prints and drawings seem significantly different that your paintings. They are much more restrained and sober, even contemplative. Is there
another artist within you at work in those media?
Avelon: Well, my black and white work does seem to be darker. I want to do more. I want to do some very large woodcuts. But they lend themselves to
different subject matters.
Optimist: Where in the City do you live? What made you choose that neighborhood? Is there anything about where you live, the neighborhood or the actual
living space that we could see reflected in your work?
Avelon: I live in Hell’s Kitchen now, but I’ve lived all over the City, the Lower East Side, Upper West Side. The whole City is just so full of energy. That’s
what brought me back here from Colorado. I happen to live in this neighborhood because it’s down the block from my Aunt’s apartment, and I was staying
there for a while before I found my own apartment. It does have lots of great restaurants and it’s right in the theater district so there’s always a lot going on.
Optimist: What other interests do you have outside of art?
Avelon: Well, it might sound strange, but I’m very interested in Quantum Physics. I read a lot about it. You know there are things that go on at the molecular
level that are incredible. There have even been experiments done where human emotions can affect the structure and condition of common molecules like
hydrogen and oxygen. And there’s my business, the party organizing, the dancing. I still love all of that.
Optimist: What are your ambitions as an artist? Where do you see your work going in five years?
Avelon: I hope to show and sell more paintings. Parts of this show are moving to London next week for an exhibit at the Lennox Gallery and I’m having a
private show in late spring/ early summer which will be listed on my website.
I’ve already mentioned my plans for future paintings, larger ones, and the woodcuts I’d like to do.
I’ve been approached by several people recently to do portraits on a commissioned basis. They get to pick the objects and materials for inclusion in their
portraits from personal items or things they like. I will follow them around photographing them as they go about their life for a while and then I will choose the
setting and the pose. They’ll have to go with my choice on that.
Optimist: Thanks, Jennifer, for spending this time with us.
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