“re|section” is an installation of laser cut felt pieces, and is part of Jenny’s current body of work, Dura Mater.
PORTSMOUTH -Great Bay Community College is proud to present “re|section” by Portsmouth, NH based artist, Barbara Rita Jenny. “re|section” is a large scale, site-specific installation of laser cut felt pieces, and is part of Ms. Jenny’s current body of work, Dura Mater. The outermost, protective lining of the brain, dura mater translates literally from Latin as “tough mother.” As the artist states, Dura Mater is part of “an effort to understand the misfiring, inflammation, and deterioration of the brains of loved ones…to make sense, make order, cut and realign and paste like placing ephemeral Band-aids on invisible wounds.” Several groupings of ancillary works by the artist are on display as well, giving viewers an in-depth look at the artist’s working and creative process.
Ms. Jenny is a digital media artist and educator with a bent towards science and math in her work and teaching. She most recently taught at Cocheco Academy of the Arts, after long stints at Philllips Exeter Academy and Heronfield Academy where she developed hybrid art/math curricula to foster spatial acuity and teach everything from ratios to the coordinate plane, tessellation to the Fibonacci sequence. Ms. Jenny is a recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the coveted NH Charitable Foundation’s “Artist’s Advancement Grant” and is on the roster of New Hampshire State Arts Fellows.
Additionally, Ms. Jenny is an arts and community advocate, having served on Portsmouth, NH’s first Blue Ribbon Committee for Arts & Culture, co-founding the Islington Creek Neighborhood Association, and coordinating the Rock Street Park stage project – one of the first community art projects in Portsmouth. In 2009 she established an artist’s residency program in Nova Scotia to support artists from Maine College of Art & Design.
Her recent work transforms electron micrographs and high-resolution digital microscopy of human brain cells into ornate pattern. By applying complex geometrical equations, Ms. Jenny has also morphed macroscopic images of human flesh into kaleidoscopic images and complex pattern. Finished products take various forms, from traditional wall hung prints to projected images, immersive installations, and large wall relief sculpture.
Ms. Jenny works in a backyard studio behind her home where she lives with her husband, some combination or permutation of her four children and extended family, plus rescued dogs Breaker and Betty.
The exhibition will be open to the public from March 8 until April 22. The Gateway Gallery, located in the main entrance to GBCC’s Portsmouth campus, is open to the public during regular campus hours. Any inquiries regarding the exhibition can be made to the gallery curator Andrew Super via email at [email protected].
Great Bay Community College is a comprehensive postsecondary institution offering quality academic and professional and technical education in support of workforce development and lifelong learning. Great Bay Community College is part of the Community College System of New Hampshire, a public system of higher education consisting of seven colleges in Berlin, Claremont, Laconia, Concord, Manchester, Nashua, and Portsmouth. The colleges offer Associate degrees and career training in technical, professional and general fields, including transfer pathways to baccalaureate degrees. For more information on Great Bay Community College, visit www.greatbay.edu.
