Jennifer Guidi

Jennifer Guidi's luminous paintings, reminiscent of mandalas, feature tonal and chromatic shifts that harmonize with intricately textured surfaces.

Biography of Jennifer Guidi

Jennifer Guidi was born in 1972 in Redondo Beach, California, USA. Currently, she resides in Los Angeles.

Even though neither of her parents had a background in visual art, she displayed an early interest and started taking art classes in a local storefront. Later, she decided to attend art school. 

Guidi went on to enroll at Boston University, where she received a formal education in painting and printmaking. The curriculum prioritized traditional techniques and representations of the human body, and she obtained her BFA in 1994.

In 1998, she earned an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2001, she relocated to Los Angeles. In 2005, she showcased her first solo exhibition at ACME.

Her fascination with the rich patterning of Moroccan rugs, particularly the intricate stitching on their seldom-seen verso sides, developed during a trip to Marrakech in 2012. Subsequently, she started painting from photographs of these woven surfaces, resulting in a series of abstract oil and sand paintings titled "Field Paintings." This series made its debut in a solo exhibition at LAXART in 2014.  

Jennifer Guidi's recent solo exhibitions include "And So It Is" at the Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa (2023), "Mountain Range" at Château La Coste in Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade (2023), "Jennifer Guidi | In the Heart of the Sun" at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles (2022), "Full Moon" at Long Museum in Shanghai (2022), "Points of Harmony" at MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique in Paris (2021), and "Gemini" at Gagosian in New York (2020). 

Jennifer Guidi's Art Style

Upon relocating to Los Angeles, Jennifer Guidi was immediately captivated by the city's unique hazy light and the blocky architecture reminiscent of the 1950s. Initially using her own photographs of local domestic interiors as inspiration for her early paintings, she gradually developed a growing fascination with the colors and textures of her subjects' walls.

After a trip to Morocco in 2012, she transitioned to a more abstract approach, drawing inspiration from the intricate stitching and irregular undersides of the country's handmade rugs. In that same year, she created her initial series of abstract "dot paintings," using small dabs of white paint on a black ground.

In 2013, Guidi introduced sand into her panels, using sticks collected from the beaches of Hawaii as mark-making tools. She devised an underpainting technique, starting by applying a substantial layer of sand onto the canvas surface. While this layer is still wet, she creates controlled and repetitive marks with a dowel, often incorporating sand and paint along the edges of the divots.

She blends sand into her paints, using both oils and acrylics, to craft immersive abstract compositions. These artworks draw inspiration from the streamlined structures of Minimalism while invoking ancient theories of energy and perception.