{"id":89242,"date":"2024-12-29T05:14:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T12:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=89242"},"modified":"2025-01-09T10:35:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T17:35:18","slug":"the-forgotten-frontier-jennifer-nehrbass-paints-women-into-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-forgotten-frontier-jennifer-nehrbass-paints-women-into-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forgotten Frontier: Jennifer Nehrbass Paints Women Into the West"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jennifer Nehrbass, “She Points North,” oil on canvas, 48×60 in.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s hard to dispute painter Jennifer Nehrbass\u2019s assertion that, from a female point of view, the popular story of the European exploration of the West doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. It\u2019s not just that women\u2019s essential roles, and even their presence, are largely written out of that history. The \u201cManifest Destiny\u201d of the post-Civil War, expansionist era, with its emphasis on \u201ctaming\u201d\u2014meaning destroying\u2014the natural landscape and all its inhabitants supposedly ended in 1898, its demise announced by Stephen Crane in his monumental short story, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.<\/i> Yet the same domination goes on, probably best symbolized by the elimination of the ultimate developer\u2019s disappointment: the Great Salt Lake.<\/h4>\n

So instead of leveling the rugged-but-haphazard landscape and replacing it with unsupportable green lawns, Nehrbass proposes in paint that we learn to appreciate its virtues. To be sure, the cactus gardens and mountain backdrops of \u201cBuckskin Sky\u201d and \u201cA Valley for Claire\u201d are not entirely unprecedented in Western imagery, but with a designer’s eye for geometry and color, she imparts a way of seeing them that, once learned, obviates the need to do any more than admire and preserve them.<\/h4>\n

A few years ago, Julie and Doug Nester took the opportunity to include a few of Albuquerque artist Jennifer Nehrbass\u2019s paintings in their gallery. These included landscapes and figures that combined natural imagery and geometric color patterns. The figures often combined realistic heads and limbs on torsos comprised of flat-looking, black and white abstract silhouettes. In their largest exhibition of her work yet, Pioneer Project<\/i> focuses on specifically Western landscapes and figures that are intended to populate those landscapes, in effect providing scene and setting for a retelling of the history of exploration, expansion, and settlement, this time from that omitted female point of view.<\/h4>\n
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Jennifer Nehrbass, “A Valley for Claire,” oil on canvas, 66×84 in.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The alternative history that these works partake of may have been written down somewhere, or may exist only in the inference provided by these images. And yet while realistically modeled, these images often suggest something other: double exposures. In \u201cHarness,\u201d for example, the closeup face appears to be wearing a transparent mask, while in \u201cWake\u201d the order is reversed: the head is transparent and through it an independent scene is revealed.<\/h4>\n

The suggestion that there is a narrative generating these characters becomes more convincing in works where they engage not in emblematic poses, but in specific, if ambiguous behaviors. Hands play curious roles: \u201cMany Hands\u201d and \u201cMargaret\u201d each have three hands, which are hard to mentally attach to the figures they caress. \u201cMargaret\u201d reveals herself in non-classical nudity that feels unrelated to her activity.<\/h4>\n

Clues abound regarding the origins of these alternate immigrants. Not inappropriate in a Western setting, some recall the ambitious, specifically Chinese incomers of Maxine Hong Kingston\u2019s several accounts: eager would-be settlers whose overtures to the new country were exploited, only to end in rejection. The Asiatic appearance of the horseback rider in \u201cKnow Me As I Yield\u201d is reinforced by its pictographic signature.<\/h4>\n
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Installation view with, from left, “Wake,” “Harness,” and “Know Me As I Yield.” Image by Geoff Wichert.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Installation view with, from left, “Spring Melt” and “Garden.” Image by Geoff Wichert.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

There are a couple of possibilities here. One is that a source for these fragments will be forthcoming. Perhaps more likely, over time a more complete narrative may emerge from the ever-growing body of images. For this excursion, sculpture has been added to the painted works. Cairns, those often mysterious monuments and signposts seen on trails and particularly conspicuous on high places, are one of the signature elements of life in the Western wilds. Jennifer Nehrbass has fabricated her own style of cairn, each with a dark stone base and a found object\u2014a brilliantly-hued piece of a tree\u2014on top. They don\u2019t so much point the way or identify a location as they represent the idea of pointing, or the concept of place that is the landscape\u2019s equivalent of a human sense of identity.<\/h4>\n

Despite the often mysterious character of art, it\u2019s possible to find works that offer definite readings. Many collectors may enjoy possessing them. For others, there is the pleasure of not-quite possessing. For them, contemplating the unknown, and perhaps even the unknowable, is part of the adventure.<\/h4>\n

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Jennifer Nehrbass: Womanfest Destiny,<\/em>\u00a0Julie Nester Gallery<\/a>, Park City, through Jan. 28, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to dispute painter Jennifer Nehrbass\u2019s assertion that, from a female point of view, the popular story of the European exploration of the West doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. It\u2019s not just that women\u2019s essential roles, and even their presence, are largely written out of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":847,"featured_media":89244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/She-Points-North-mirror_48x60_700-1.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 11:19:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89456,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89242\/revisions\/89456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}