Jennifer Bastian at Arts + Literature Laboratory

We love seeing what our midwest nice artists are up to! We’re excited to share a solo exhibition with work by Jennifer Bastian✨ Jennifer was featured in our art as storytelling exhibition.

Jennifer’s series Grief Wave is on view at Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, WI through March 1, 2025. An opening reception will be hosted Friday, January 24, 2025 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Jennifer says of her work:

The death of my second mother, Beverly, cracked open a wound in me that I have been unable and unwilling to sew shut. It’s always been there, but for most of my life I was able to hide it. A wound of childhood trauma, unknown neurodivergence, many things one masks to exist in a society not structured for them. All of the work in this exhibition began after Bev’s death and was in direct response to the pain and the very intense love I have for her. 

After Bev died, the absolute urgency and abandon I have felt to FEEL and SAY and DO has felt like a compulsion. I cannot stop building candle wax mountains, or sewing fluffy stuffed teardrops. I no longer have an inner voice questioning whether my work is “good” or whether anyone will like it. I need to make it, so I do. 

The directness I feel these days stops me from considering whether someone will understand what I mean by a photograph or a quilt. I must tell them quite clearly. And so I will tell you: it means love, it means liberation from oppressive family or societal systems, it means justice. This work began with the death of one of the people I have loved most in my life, and who helped to teach me how to love. Now my heart circles the globe. It will never again be closed to love and to pain, and to my own responsibility to those around me. 

all images courtesy of Jennifer Bastian