Jennifer May Reiland
Photo by Brad Ogbonna
Jennifer May Reiland’s paintings and drawings examine the collapsed distinction between reality and image in a post-9/11, post-Internet world where it is difficult to tell what is real and what is false.
Her work explores relationships between historical events as diverse as the reconquest of Spain, the Spanish discovery of the New World, World War I, 9/11, and the present and are informed by issues of gender expression, violence, religious belief, and political and cultural identities. Her work re-situates drawing along a spectrum of immersive alternate realities in which drawing is not opposed to images on a screen, but is a stage progressing towards total immersion in an alternate reality. The drawings are themselves a closed alternate reality with recurring characters, internal mythologies, and a cast of many hundreds.
Houston, TX
Born 1989, Houston, TX
2011 BFA The Cooper Union, New York, NY