"Cold Cobble" by Jennifer Ogden, 2015
“Look down,” suggests Hamilton collage artist Jennifer Ogden, whose work is on display through April at The Artists’ Shop in Missoula. “Stop a moment to examine the forest floor or peer through murky shallows or shining depths. While you are inhabiting this respite, you could also look up and consider the sanctuary given by a screen of tall branches partitioning you from endless sky.”
The natural world inspires Ogden’s elaborate collages. Using scissors, she snips pieces from the business envelopes and magazines that filter through her mailbox. She then re-contextualizes the textures, colors and patterns into intricate and subtle images of people and places.
Ogden earned her bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and her teaching certification from The University of Montana. She has taught art to grades K-12 in Victor since 1995 and received the school’s Innovative Teacher Award in 2000; she’s also on the teaching faculty for the Missoula Art Museum and was recently named a teaching artist for SPARK Arts in Missoula.
She participated in the Montana Wilderness Association’s inaugural Artists Along the Divide in 2014, and her work has appeared at Bitterroot Valley galleries and in museums across Montana.
“In nature we are afforded a sensory experience that awakens childhood memories, freeing us up to conjure the apparitions of our own awareness,” she writes of her nature-inspired work. “The most pressing, crowded worries can fly away into outdoor spaces finally separate from their maker. Like us, they will have finally found their place in the wild.”
– Kristi Niemeyer