Jesse Connor
Jesse Connor's work is driven by both the emotional, transformative power of the landscape, and the process of improvisation with composition and materials.
Biography
The landscape has a story to tell, and that story is brought to life through a mixed media approach using painting, drawing and printmaking. Through careful observation and documentation on site, Connor compiles a catalogue of visual inspiration from which he creates imagined spaces full of detail, color, light and story. His recent work creates landscapes that feel remote. This taps into an impulse to explore, discover and to find the extraordinary in all surroundings. These images contain the contradictory feelings of beauty, solitude and threat. This contradiction invites imaginative speculation. Some work also explores the complex relationship people have with the land they live on. This relationship is one of both synergy and conflict, but always one of reliance.
Connor has exhibited in Cameroon, West Africa, Berlin, Germany, Key West, Florida, Ann Arbor, Michigan and in various venues in Massachusetts. He has taught a variety of courses in drawing, printmaking and painting at Springfield Technical Community College, Mount Wachusett Community College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Connor was a visiting faculty member at Bennington in Fall 2012, and returned for Spring 2018.