Jennifer Slack

Jennifer Slack is a hyper-realistic colored pencil and graphite artist. As a military spouse, she moves often but currently resides in Arlington, Virginia. Slack earned her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Florida in 2006. Her early career was fairly diverse, working as a mural artist, an illustrator, and then a portrait artist. But she eventually found her way back to her first joy - drawing. Since then she has been in multiple national and regional shows (including the Mattie Kelly Arts Center 33rd Emerald Coast National and the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts) and has sold work to private clients in the United States and Europe. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, creating illustrations in both colored pencil and graphite. In 2022 she was the first place winner of the Air Force Art Contest for her colored pencil piece entitled, Wonder. Her current series is in colored pencil and explores the concept of portraiture through objects. Artist Statement: I create hyper-realistic drawings in colored pencil and graphite. I love to examine my subject matter and recreate the minutiae that often goes unseen; the intricacies of a zipper or the abstraction of surface reflections. By examining something with this level of scrutiny and detail it allows me to get to know the object on a deeper level. It is an exploration of the parts of life that we often take for granted. For over a decade I was primarily a portrait artist. And regardless of how photo-real the end result may be, if I don’t truly “capture” the person that I am drawing it will be unsuccessful. Often “capturing” a person boils down to something rather ambiguous. It can just be a feeling in looking at the image that the essence of the person is there, or not. My piece, “An Homage to my Grandmother,” is the first in a series of so called portraits. My hope is to “capture” the essence of those closest to me without actually showing them physically. I aim to capture each of my subjects with a solitary object. My grandmother, Dodie Thayer, became best known for her ceramic pieces referred to as Lettuceware. Much of my childhood was spent with her in her ceramics studio. It was she, more than anyone else, that inspired me to create, to become an artist. She has now since passed and an object that I hold dear is one of her Lettuceware tea cups. In drawing this cup I felt a deep connection to her, knowing that her hands sculpted and painted it. I also felt connected to the object as I worked to recreate the glossy and slippery texture of the ceramic with colored pencil. Breaking down the reflections on the cup into abstract shapes forced me to let go of the expected and trust the process - that in the end it will meld together into something real.

IG: @jslackillustrations