“Creating art has always been a cathartic outlet, a way for me to retreat from the hustle and bustle of everyday life,” says multimedia artist Jennifer Hudnell. “My hope is for people to get lost in my art while finding themselves in a piece.” Her collage series Painting with Paper is a testament to the power of paper from locally crafted shops from around the world, including Nepal, Thailand, Italy, and Mexico. Colorful scraps lure the viewer into each work through an interplay of tactility and vibrancy.
A Fiery Day, collage, 16 x 20 inches, 2020.
Hudnell combines the textures and colors of her papers with fragments of cardboard, magazine cutouts, tissues, and diaphanous materials, layering them to create an abstraction. In one such work, First Day of Autumn, she evokes the form of a leaf during the changing of the seasons. Hints of ochre mingle with polka-dotted green tissue paper, with textured gold suggesting the crinkles of a leaf just turned. “Once I delicately lay down a few pieces of paper, I listen closely,” she says. “The work will tell me where another piece needs to go, what color needs to be added, whether the composition is balanced, and then down the line, when the piece is finished.”
