Birgit Jensen German, b. 1957

At the most basic level, Birgit Jensen is a landscape painter.   She’ll appropriate an image of a site—often someplace she’s never been, sometimes a place that doesn’t even exist—and manipulate the pixels, making up the image into geometric marks or patterns, and then make a low-resolution, pixelated painting in oil or acrylic on canvas.

Inspired both by Japanese woodblock prints and the Pop Art of Andy Warhol, Jensen’s paintings vibrate and shimmer.  From a distance (or viewed as a small photographic image), they’re easily discernible.  Upon closer inspection however, they break down into textile-like patterns and become more abstract – a comment on the relationship between perspective and understanding.

Jensen’s most recent work revolves around the moon and its reflection in a still body of water.  Her paintings feature vibrant, unexpected color combinations, achieved through a meticulous process of layering silkscreens, custom-made by the artist.  The results are striking, and speak to the nature of perception, mediation, interpretation, and memory.