Jennifer Onofrio Fornes

BIO

Jennifer Onofrio-Fornes received her BFA from University of Wisconsin, Madison and an MFA from the University of California, Davis. Her work is featured in many private and public collections including Morris Museum of Art (Augusta, GA), North Dakota Museum of Art (Grand Forks, ND). She currently works as a professor at Augusta State University.

GALLERY

ARTIST STATEMENT

“In many ways, I think of my work as non-traditional portraiture; I am not as concerned with communicating a physical likeness as much as conjuring less visible aspects of the subject. I've been exploring the idea of transience for several years, but, more recently in Trace, I have been exploring transience in the context of eastern notions of transcendence. Trace attempts to move beyond purely figurative interpretations and works to emphasize the non-physical spaces that we occupy--our psychological and ephemeral spaces. I’m interested in the relationship among the physical and the ephemeral forms.

I construct sculptural environments in my studio with which I interact and capture the movement on film. My movements are awkward and strained in reality, but I choose to print images that translate as fluid and graceful. The images start to hint at notions of transience and, in turn, move beyond the specific action taking place. As the clear reference to photography falls away, the images start to become more abstract, leaving room for broader associations to take place.”