Artist Reception:  August 23rd | 5pm–7pm
Poetry Reading: 6pm                                                                                        

INSTITUTE OF  advanced  UNCERTAINTY is pleased to present The Nature of The Place, a residency + exhibition of paintings by Jenny Bloomfield. 

“The landscape is changing under the direction of strong survivors who seem to always know what they want, and I believe that the sometimes unclear, the almost alchemist activities of artists offer vital and essential clues to alternative attitudes.” –Tony Cragg  

Familiarity with where she walks in her hometown has grown over the years but it is only recently that the nature of the place has found its way into Jenny Bloomfield’s paintings. What Bloomfield sees and thinks about becomes layers of color and brush marks that retrace and uncover places, plants, hills and trees and connect these to her thoughts. This is her process. 

“Accumulation of impressions along a track - a world of patterns, the logic of growth and the scattering of light - a world of woodland and paint. There is a sense of urgency around nature and the environment that has pushed landscape painting into a new frame, not as much romantic, but environmental also. It has become almost impossible to be in the natural landscape without being aware of its vulnerability to development and exploitation.”  

–Jenny Bloomfield  

As part of this residency Jenny Bloomfield will be joined by a fellow resident of this place, Canyon Steinzig, who will read his poetry that responds to her paintings. 

 “Jenny Bloomfield and I reside on the same watershed of pristine land about which much of her work is inspired. We walk the same hills, breathe mineral rich air and at night hear the same coyotes, frogs, catfights and dogs. This land we inhabit is what ultimately brings our work together. I imagine that we both have the visceral and intellectual understanding of just how vulnerable and valuable these last open spaces actually are. 

My collaboration with her paintings is situated then in a broad field of empathy. In a very literal way, I am brought to the wire fence around her work. And out of respect and curiosity I stand from an intentional distance and watch her paint. Through this I am at once familiar and maintain enough distance to allow my own work to emerge as a parallel expression.” – Canyon Steinzig 

Jenny Bloomfield grew up in London, England and graduated from Central St. Martin’s School of Art. She has lived in the Bay Area for 30 years. Her work has been shown locally at George Lawson Gallery, Don Soker Gallery, KALA Art Institute, Stanford University, Berkeley Art Center as well as Highway 90 Gallery in Marfa, Texas. 

Canyon Steinzig was educated in nursing at Samuel Merritt University Oakland, CA, where he is on faculty. He earned a PhD from the University of California San Francisco. For him poetry is not something divorced from his academic and clinical life. In fact it is situated deeply in what is to him the most elemental aspect of this work; which are the difficult issues of proximity and empathy within the concept of Care (giving). It is in part this interest that has recently bought his work explicitly into a collaborative plane with visual artists. 

INSTITUTE OF advanced UNCERTAINTY is a program of Five Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) based in San Francisco. 

Gallery hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12:30pm to 5:30pm, or by appointment.