Jean Feinberg is an American abstract painter who uses paint, wood, canvas and paper to explore the intersection of painting and object. Using salvaged wood, she constructs paintings that incorporate sculptural qualities, blurring the lines between 2D and 3D representation. She lives and works in New York City.
Education
Jean Feinberg earned her BS in Fine Arts from Skidmore College in upstate New York and went on to earn her Master of Art in painting from Hunter College. Feinberg has taught or lectured at Parsons School of Design, Princeton, the Chicago Art Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design, among others. She currently teaches drawing and painting at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Technique
Feinberg works with a variety of techniques and mediums, including painting, paper collage and installation. The majority of her work incorporates the application of paint, gesso, canvas and other mediums to found and salvaged wood.
Her process results in abstract paintings, sometimes called constructions, which utilize geometric abstraction and lush, dramatic color patterns to explore relationships between color, material and space.
The work defies objective reference points, instead evoking meditative qualities and facilitating emotional explorations.
Inspiration
Feinberg gains inspiration from her environment, in particular, the interplay of light and color in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. She is also guided in her color choices and compositional decisions by wood, paint chips and other found materials she incorporates into her constructions.
Inspired by notions of landscape, nature, time, space and feeling, Feinberg's abstract constructions communicate feelings about the partnership of human-made materialism with more transcendent elements of nature.
Relevant quotes
Jeanette Fintz, abstract painter and art writer, wrote about Feinberg's work for The Artful Mind, saying:
“Feinberg’s subtly hued, rusticated, minimalist constructions are very much in line with the accomplished abstract canvases she has exhibited throughout her career. Her loose, but thoughtful and spatial geometric style has always been concerned with planar color…Her sensitivity to light, shape, and line transforms…”
Collections
Feinberg's works are included in a variety of both public and private collections throughout the United States. Her work is collected by art collector and philanthropist Werner Kramarsky and is also included in the collection of the Weatherspoon Art Gallery at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Notable distinctions
Feinberg's work has been reviewed in several prominent art publications, including Artforum, ArtNews, Art International and the New York Times.
Feinberg has been awarded residencies from the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, the oldest artist colony in the United States.
Exhibitions
She has extensively exhibited her work throughout America, mainly on the US East coast in a variety of solo and group shows.
