Jennifer's profile
Jennifer McBrien, navigates the realm of embroidery with a skilled hand, intertwining freehand machine and hand stitching to create evocative portrayals of women, birds, and hybrid figures. Often featuring female bodies with bird heads, McBrien's compositions transcend traditional representations and delve into complex themes of femininity, liberation, and connection with nature. By incorporating the Toile pattern into her textile works, McBrien explores the historical and cultural associations of the fabric art tradition, while simultaneously reflecting its reemergence onto the broader art world scene. Her pieces resonate with a renewed appreciation for the power and significance of textiles in contemporary artistic discourse.
Jennifer McBrien is a Baltimore native who began her artistic career as a painter, exhibiting her work throughout the East Coast from the mid 80’s to mid 2000’s. McBrien began her fiber direction about two decades ago, feeling that oil painting was too toxic for what she wanted to communicate. She currently has her studio in a historic mill building in the Hampden area of Baltimore where cotton duck canvas use to be produced as well as one of McBrien’s main materials she uses. Throughout her career, McBrien taught for 30 years in Baltimore County when she ran a high school art program for the last half of her teaching career. Now retired, she is a full time artist who gets inspired by her daily wooded walks to her studio, hiking through numerous landscapes around Maryland and beyond. In October of 2023, McBrien participated in her first artist residency at the Atelier Artist Residency program at Chateau Bouthonvilliers, a beautiful, sprawling French estate, classified as a historic monument outside of Chartres, France. She has begun to show her work in numerous gallery shows including “Tenuous Threads”, at the Atlantic Gallery, a Chelsea gallery in New York City, “Figure” at the Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC., and B23, Artscape, in Baltimore, MD. Her past Fine Craft shows include the Smithsonian Craft Show, at the National Building Museum, Washington, DC.,American Made, American Craft Council Craft Show, in Baltimore, MD, and at the Contemporary Craft show at Jazz Fest in NOLA. She was awarded the 2023 American Craft Council Award of Excellence in 2023. She will be part of the Baltimore Promotions of Arts “Emerge” series for Spring of 2024 in Baltimore, MD.
