Jenny Brillhart

Jenny Brillhart’s paintings, installations, and photos are informed by her surroundings both found and created. She is interested in the structure and function of often overlooked material. Many ideas arise through a studio-based building and arranging routine using objects and photographs. The content often references art making, domesticity, and construction. By creating stilled moments through three-dimensional object placement, the commonly understood job of something may be altered. Use of time-lapse photography captures what could be missed and draws the day. Tools like rulers, cameras, brushes and prints often leave their mark. Physical space, light, time, and material are constant participants in the making and display. Process and flexibility allow for unexpected moments.

The paintings derived from built set-ups, further consider composition and cropping and their subjects’ relationship to paint. The paint is sculptural as well; it’s anatomy in plain view. This movement and manipulation of mediums reveal attempts to control and create content through form, light, and structure.

Jenny Brillhart was born 1972 in Keene, New Hampshire. She received a BFA from Smith College in Northhampton, MA. She then went on to study at The Art Students League, NY and in 2003 she graduated from The New York Academy of Art with an MFA in painting. Jenny has shown widely in the U.S. and Europe. She lives and works in Blue Hill, Maine.

EDUCATION 

2003 MFA, New York Academy of Art, cum laude, New York, NY

2001 The Art Students League, New York, NY 

1994 BA Smith College, Northhampton, MA

 SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2023

Placement, The Zillman Museum of Art, Bangor, ME

2022 

Room for, Dowling Walsh Gallery Rockland, ME

Object Hours, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery Berlin, Germany

2021

Housekeeping, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL

2020

Shaded Ground, Dowling and Walsh, Rockland, ME

2019 

Floor Matters, Perimeter Gallery, Belfast, ME

Selectmen’s Office, Dowling and Walsh, Rockland, ME

2018 

Where the Rubber Meets the Road, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2015 

Overcast, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2014 

Noonday, Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL

Flat Prospects, Fringe Projects public works, The History Museum, Miami, FL

2013 

An Extra Space, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2011 

Material, Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL

Lot Lines, Alice & William Jenkins Gallery, Winter Park, FL

2010 

North Miami Court – Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2009 

New Work, Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL

2008

Hotel Continental, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2006

Saxony Interiors, Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2005

Exteriors, The Art Gallery at Government Center, Miami, FL

TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2017

Temporality, with Sara Stites, CMCA, Rockland, ME

2015

Pulse Art Fair,two-person show with Frances Twombly, Miami Beach, FL

Stilled Practice, Pascal Hall, two person show Sara Stites, Rockport, ME

2013

Accumulation, Hollywood Art & Culture Center, Hollywood, FL

Cut Outs, 2 person show, Dimensions Variable, Miami, FL

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 

2023

Interior, Curated by R. Romanski and T. Peterson, CMCA (Center for Maine Contemporary Art), Rockland ME

2022

When in Maine, Nina Johnson Gallery, Miami, FL

XX, Morgan Lehman Gallery, NY, NY

2020 

Taste of a Cinder Block, Curated by Aaron Stephan, Able Baker Gallery, Portland, ME

Between the Legible and the Opaque, Curated by Adler Guerrier, Audrey Love Gallery, Miami, FL

2019 

2019 de Cordova Biennial, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA

Fragment, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL, April 2019 (Critics’ Pick in Art Forum)

2018 

Art Miami, Kuckei + Kuckei, Miami, FL

Viewfinders, Cynthia Winings Gallery, Blue Hill, ME

Sunrise, Sunset, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL

2017

Atmosphere, Cynthia Winings Gallery, Blue Hill, ME

2016 

Smash & Grab, Locust Projects, Miami, FL

2015 

Miami Cityscapes, Frost Museum of Science, Miami, FL

Smash & Grab, Locust Projects, Miami, FL

2014 -2015

ART 30, Art Center 30 Year Retrospective, Miami Beach, FL

2014 

Room Service, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany

 2013 

Online Resident, April-July, The Frost Museum, Miami, Florida, 2013

2012

Let’s Begin With A Line, Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL

Unit, Dimensions Variable, Miami, FL

Potential Amendments, Art Center South Florida Gallery, Miami Beach, FL

ARCO Madrid, Project with Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Madrid, Spain, 2012

Stillstehende Sachen, Sammlung SØR Rusche zu Gast im Museum Abtei Liesborn

Pulse Art Fair, Miami, with Kuckei + Kuckei Gallery, Berlin

2011 

Faculty Exhibition, New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL

2010

Good and Plenty, Art Center South Florida, Miami Beach, FL

New Work Miami, PAMM, Curated by Rene Morales and Peter Boswell, Miami, FL

Florida Contemporary 2010, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL

A Flawed Providence, Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL

HONORS, AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

2021   Ellis Beaureguard Residency Oct. and Nov. , Rockland, ME

2012   Legal Art CSA Project Winner,  Miami, FL

2005   Chestler Foundation Grant Winner, Miami FL

2003   Vermont Studio Center, Grant winner. Resident in January, Johnson, VT

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Art New England Magazine – Review of Placement at Zillman Art Museum by Carl Little, Winter 2023

The Portland Press Herald – Review of CMCA show Interior by Jorge Arango, featured photo, Oct. 2022

The Gettysburg Review, Featured artwork, 2021

The Portland Press Herald – Work at Corey Daniels Gallery with Claire Seidl by Jorge Arango/Arts writer, Oct 2021

Art Forum – Critics’ Pick, Fragment, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL, April 2019

Selectmen’s Office, show at Dowling Walsh, reviewed by Dan Cany in the Portland Press Herald

deCordova Biennial 2019 Review by Murry White/Arts writer, in the Boston Globe

The Miami Herald Review of Meetinghouse. November 28, 2014

Noonday Review in the Miami Rail by Hunter Braithwaite, March 2014

Huffington Post Must See Shows for April by Steven Zevitas, March 2014 

Ocean Drive Magazine: Brillhart Builds a Better Painting, by Brett Sokol, Summer 2012

Orlando Weekly, Lot Lines Review by Richard Reep, March 2011

Brillhart Paintings, 2004-2009, BAP, Winter 2009

The McKinsey Quarterly, Fall 2008

New American Paintings, Summer quarter 2008

INFORADIO, Interview, Berlin, Germany, March 2008

The Financial Times, Germany, April 2008

Miami Contemporary Artists, by Paul Clemence and Julie Davidow, 2007

New American Paintings, Summer quarter 2007

Berliner Zeitung, Berlin, Germany, Summer 2006

Sunpost, Miami Beach, FL, 2003

SELECTED COLLECTIONS 

Keith Flaherty

Jeremy Chestler

Upstairs Studio

Nick Brownlee,

Robin T. and Stuart Ray

Joachim Schloesser

Loren Roberts

Brooke Feder

Fifty Cent

TEACHING EXPERIENCE 

Mentor for Blue Hill Peninsula High School students through Haystack, Oil painting

2019   Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Painting instruction during summer residency

2009-2012   New World School of the Arts, Adjunct Painting Instructor, Teaching at a magnet high

school dedicated to students specifically interested in the arts. Figure drawing and painting, still life

painting, portfolio development, history of art, and independent projects all practiced.

2009-2010   University of Miami, Adjunct Painting Instructor, Figure drawing and painting, still life

and landscape painting, portfolio development, history of art, and independent projects all practiced.

2003-2005   Art Center South Florida, Painting/Drawing Instructor. Taught and mentored teens and adults. Figure drawing and painting, still life painting, color mixing, value scale all highlighted.