Jennie West is a creative polymath, establishing compound connections between fine art, intuitive empathy, music and performance. Exploring themes of love, spirituality and boundaries, her compositions manifest the undulating energetic connections between artist and muse. Embedded in West’s multidisciplinary work is an artist’s probe into the philosophy of art as a tool for human evolution, where a work of art explores the possibilities of interconnectedness using established techniques from multiple disciplines.
As Wassily Kandinsky stated in his treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art “there has never been a time when the arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this later phase of spiritual development. In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material. Consciously or unconsciously they are obeying Socrates’ command—Know Thyself. Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of these elements, with which it is their several privilege to work. And the natural results of this striving is that the various arts are drawing together.”
Expanding on Kandinsky’s correlation between the spiritual and other art forms, West relies on principles of creative expression she developed through a lifelong engagement in both the performing and visual arts.
With a family background in the arts and over forty years of interdisciplinary training in music, performance and fine art, West’s beginnings were notable. At the age of five, she sang for First Lady Bess Wallace Truman. She went on to attend Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, a specialized high school where she completed college level studio painting and performance courses. Winning full scholarships to programs at The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, The Kansas City Art Institute, and Southwest Missouri State University, West also became one of the youngest students to attend a program at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. She moved to New York City with a high level of creative training and chose to study liberal arts, attending The New School for Social Research and Hunter College before pursuing her career as a multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur working in theatre, film, and costume design. She is a jazz performer, lyricist and has released an album, while also tattooing and maintaining a painting practice. In 2017 she was hand selected for an ongoing studio residency at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx, where she continues to practice today. West has exhibited in New York City, Philadelphia, during Miami Art Basel 2018 and at MoMA PopRally x Bronx 2019.
With Poetic Theater Productions:
Featured Visual Artist in Poetic License 2020: Renewal Gallery