Works by Jenee Mateer
Ventures Gallery
The Hot House II series alludes to the metaphorical connection between flowers and the female or feminine and are meant to celebrate a diverse group of women, transformed and unified by bold color, pattern and natural forms that re-affirm the female connection to powerful forces of nature and the earth. These images also re-affirm in Mateer’s belief that we are not separate from nature or technology but are rather intrinsically, symbiotically, and inescapably defined by both. Mark Twain’s amusing re-imagining of Eve in the Garden of Eden in his book, Letters to the Earth, as well as Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, Frankenstein, and other fairy tales have long been an inspiration for her work.
By combining photographs from the artist’s garden with watercolor to create digitally layered compositions that hover somewhere between the mediums of photography, collage, and painting, Jenee hope’s to suggest that hybrid forms allow for revelations in making and understanding.
Jenee Mateer is a photographer and video artist who was born in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. in English/Modern Studies from the University of Virginia in 1987 and her M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1996. In 2007, she joined the faculty of Towson University, where she is currently Professor of Photo Imaging and Chair of the Department of Art + Design, Art History, Art Education. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the ArtHamptons Art Fair, Biggs Museum of American Art, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, FotoNostrum 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Exhibition, Barcelona, Spain, Jordan Faye Contemporary in Baltimore, Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts, Masur Museum of Art, Newport Museum, Rhode Island Foundation, San Francisco Art Market, Scope International Art Fair in Miami, and Texas Contemporary Art Fair in Houston. She is the author of Break Boundary, Places Real and Imagined (2018), and The Animals (2012). Her essays and photographs have appeared in This is Visual Poetry (2011), the 1st and 5th International Photography Annual (2012, 2018), The Photo Review (2012), Masters of Photography (2012), Philosophy of Photography, Vol. 4 (2013), Alphabet (2016), Abstract 20-21, and Home: Lived Experiences (2022), and her photographs are in numerous private collections, including China Trust Bank. She resides in Baltimore, Maryland, with her son, Alex and her husband Lawrence.
Image Credit: “Lana,” archival pigment print mounted to aluminum, 40″ x 29.7″