Streets: Jen Stark – “Tunnel Vision”

Recently in Los Angeles, Jen Stark unveiled an outdoor public sculpture commissioned by the Santa Monica Cultural Affairs and curated by LeBasse Projects. Entitled Tunnel Vision, the 20ft x 5ft x 5ft installation features a cascading series of ring shapes that bring to mind her paper cut pieces when viewed directly on, utilizing the same vivid colors and familiar forms. From the opposite end, the sculpture follows a black and white gradient adding another unique perspective. As part of the ROAM series of temporary art installations, the piece will be on view through late May.

American artist Jen Stark was born in Miami, Florida in 1983 and received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005, majoring in bers with a minor in animation. Jen Stark’s artwork is driven by her interest in conceptualizing visual systems to simulate plant growth, evolution, in nity, fractals, mimetic topographies, and sacred geometries. Using available materials—paper, wood, metal, paint—Stark strives to make work that balances on a razor’s edge of optical seduction and perceptual engagement.

The resulting works often resemble organic, molecular, cloud-like structures, and are imbued with kinetic, undulating e ects that serve to dislocate the viewer from staid reality into an immersive ecosphere of echoing patterns and the implausible designs found in nature. Even her vivid colors are in direct conversation with the natural world; the attractant/repellent properties of owers encouraging pollination or insects warning birds of their poisonous traits, and the luminous mystery of phosphorescent sea creatures are among Stark’s concerns.

Stark’s ability to create atmospheric, minimal, naturalist con gurations that only reveal themselves after deep engagement align her with the artistic legacies of Yayoi Kusama, Sol Lewitt, Tara Donovan, Tom Friedman, Andy Goldsworthy, Ernst Haeckel, and the Finish Fetish artists of 1960s Los Angeles.

Not limited to the con nes of museums and galleries, Stark’s diverse practice—a series of sculptural objects that rely on a commitment to process and hypnotic repetition; charismatic wall works; widely seen murals; and intricately animated lms—have been exhibited throughout the world.

Stark was born in Miami, Florida in 1983, and studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, graduating in 2005. Since then, Stark has realized exhibitions globally, with major shows in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Thailand, and Canada. Her work is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the West Collection, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale and MOCA Miami, among others.

Stark lives and works in Los Angeles.