Baker Artist Portfolios

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-80s to the mid-2000s. McBrien began her fiber direction about two decades ago, feeling that oil painting was too toxic for what she wanted to communicate. She has her studio in a historic mill building in the Hampden area of Baltimore where cotton duck canvas was produced, as well as a main material McBrien uses. Throughout her career, McBrien taught for 30 years in Baltimore County as a high school art chairman for the last half of her teaching career. Now retired, she is a full-time artist, 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 shown her work in numerous gallery shows, including: "The Subversive Thread” at Westobou Gallery in Augusta, Georgia, and the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, "Unraveling Narratives: A Dialogue in Toile”, at Gallery B, Bethesda, MD and “Reverie&Alchemy”, at the Holtzman Gallery. Towson University, Towson, MD., “Tenuous Threads,” at the Atlantic Gallery, a Chelsea gallery in New York City. Her past Fine Craft shows include the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in Tampa, FL., Rittenhouse Fine Arts Sow in Philadelphia, PA, the Smithsonian Craft Show at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC., American Made, American Craft Council Craft Show in Baltimore, MD,  and 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