Jenny Fine: States Project: Alabama

Jenny Fine: States Project: Alabama by Caitlin PetersonNovember 6, 2015

©Jenny Fine, from The Saddest Day

Today it is my pleasure to share the work of Jenny Fine. Another Alabama artist recently featured, Jared Ragland, shared Jenny’s work with me, and I feel very fortunate that he did. In addition to working photographically, Jenny is also a performance/installation artist, and when I first saw her work, I was enchanted. The way she creates beautiful visualizations based on what are often very delicate, somber stories of her family life immediately struck a chord with me, and I knew I had to feature her this week. Her work provides a unique, colorful look into how growing up on a farm in rural Alabama continues to shape her life today.

Jenny Fine (b. 1981, Enterprise, AL) received a BFA from the University of Alabama in 2006 and an MFA from The Ohio State University in 2010. In 2001, Fine taught at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China. In 2002, she spent the summer working at Susana Homes Orphanage and Women’s Shelter in Nigeria, Africa. In 2006, Fine was awarded a National Windgate Fellowship from the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design and a Fergus Memorial Scholarship from The Ohio State University in 2009. In 2011, Fine taught at The Ohio State University in the Department of Art, was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at The Wellington School in Columbus, Ohio, and was awarded by the Greater Columbus Arts Council an artist residency in Dresden, Germany. She exhibits her work in group shows throughout the United States including a recent exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art and an upcoming exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Oh. She has performed and lectured on her current project, Flat Granny and Me: A Procession in My Mind, in a wide variety of venues including Kent State University; The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, Oh.; the Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, Ala.; the Walnut Gallery in Gadsden, Ala.; and Fine’s hometown of Enterprise, Ala.

Jenny shares some insight into her practice:

I photograph my family.

Through the lens of my camera, the landscape of the family farm and the interiors of our homes become a stage on which our costumed bodies play act ourselves. Over time, the camera has become a tool for facilitating intimacy between my family and me, a way of expressing the things that feel difficult in life, but through the camera are made possible. Engaging a cross-disciplinary practice, incorporating both contemporary and historical photographic processes, moving image, installation, performance and storytelling, I create images and environments inspired by my rural southern landscape and my family’s stories.