Moments of Change: Prints by Jackie Battenfield

The University of Richmond Museums presents Moments of Change: Prints by Jackie Battenfield, on view from October 21 to December 13, 2009, in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art. This selection of works on paper features collages, monotypes, woodcuts, and screenprints by contemporary New York artist Jackie Battenfield (American, born 1950). Known for her luminous colors and gestural approach to creating work, she explores the abstract qualities of the landscape, delving into the forces of nature, changes in weather, the passage of time, and the fluidity of water in this exhibition dedicated to her graphic work.

Born in Pittsburgh, Battenfield received her B.A. from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and her M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York. Her paintings and prints have been exhibited in galleries and museums, both nationally and internationally. Battenfield’s work is included in over 1000 private, public, and corporate collections worldwide including the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; New York Public Library; Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University; the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson; and the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, Virginia; among others.

The exhibition includes images from groups of prints she has made over the past seventeen years, each series exploring where abstraction combines with landscape elements in a tantalizing dance between the shapes of trees, clouds, and bodies of water with the sheer freedom of gesture, color, and atmosphere. In regards to the subject matter in her work, Battenfield states, “Weather dominates landscape in the most seductive manner. It is nature at its most abstract — most violent, most serene, most mysterious, most prosaic — and it mirrors the changing emotional landscape within me.” About her recent work, the artist adds, “I have focused on the fluidity of water and the natural gestural action of tree branches alongside abstract brushstrokes and poured layers of paint. Within this process I find a meditative place from which to reflect on the concepts of time. Each image captures a single moment, while reflecting all moments.”

Nancy Princenthal, art critic, writer, and Senior Editor of Art in America, in her catalogue essay describes Battenfield’s work as “lavishly beautiful compositions, which sometimes coalesce into luminous waterscapes or studies of tree limbs, and in other cases remain abstract, are all, in a sense, collaborations – not with other artists, but with the processes of nature and the properties of the materials she uses.”

Battenfield currently teaches professional development classes at Columbia University and the Creative Capital Foundation, New York. She is the author of The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love published in 2009 by Da Capo Press. Her work can be seen on her website: www.jackiebattenfield.com.

Organized and circulated by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums, in collaboration with the artist. An illustrated catalogue, published by the University of Richmond Museums and includes an essay by Nancy Princenthal, art critic, writer, and Senior Editor of Art in America, is available.