Biography

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Jennifer Herring-photo credit
Jennifer Hartley Illanes is a Canadian Multimedia Artist working in Calgary as a Studio Assistant with Natalie Gerber. Her practice makes use of fibre arts, digital media, sculpture, and performance. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from The Alberta University of the Arts, and received the Board of Governors Graduating Student Award in 2016.  

Jennifer has participated in the Contextural Fibre Arts Residency, the ACAD Artist in Residency Program with a focus on Mental Health Awareness, and has shown her work in galleries in Alberta and Manitoba. With her art documentation reaching audiences across the world, her practice is continuing to expand.

Jennifer’s work explores themes of extravagance, feminism, religion and playful social critique, with a focus on the pomegranate as a symbol of the cycle of life, and spirituality. By making use of literary and historical symbols and stories, she binds the past with the contemporary in an attempt to evaluate our society through the lens of previous centuries. Some of Jennifer Illanes’s work has focused on medieval knights, symbols of wealth (contemporary and Victorian), and performative masculinity. Another aspect of Jennifer’s research focuses on the future of young adults in society.  Through the use of self-deprecating humor, she hopes to make our apocalyptic fears more approachable.