We were lucky to catch up with Jennifer Gunlock recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jennifer, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
At its core, my resilience comes from my persistent need to make art. If I go too long without exercising my creative muscle, I get cagey and irritable. That sums up for me what defines a person as an artist. They just can’t not do it. I recall meeting phenomenally talented people in college and grad school who soon quit their practice, never to return to artmaking, and that astonished me every time.
I’d also been repeatedly blessed with mentors throughout my art education and in the years following, and I have a strong, supportive community of fellow artists. The slow, tortoise-like evolution of my own art career allowed my work to mature in a thoughtful way, and that journey allowed me to redefine what my success in the art world can look like. Those sporadic opportunities that do pop up continue to remind me that I’m doing what I’m meant to do.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am an artist making collage-drawings on panel and paper as well as digitally collaged animations. I incorporate photographs that I’ve taken on my travels with decorative papers and colored pencil to construct landscapes that are marked by infrastructure such as mines, oil wells, cell phone towers disguised as trees, and buildings for habitation. The work not only comments on our direct impact on the environment, but it also reflects on Earth’s interminable shapeshifting over the long period of its existence.
My intention in my practice is to compel people to take a more mindful look at how they regard the natural world. As we continue to build on top of, and reshape the land we inhabit, I hope the work I do encourages people to bring more intimate and respectful attention to the land, plants and animals around them.
What is getting me excited these days with my practice is my switching back and forth between traditional collage-drawing and digital collage-based video work. I’m entering an exciting chapter in my practice where I’m branching out into installations with an intention to make room-sized video projections that immerse the viewer in my imaginary landscapes.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
All of my various day jobs throughout my adult life were in the art world, which gave me effective administration skills to apply to my art career. Having worked at both nonprofit and commercial galleries, and having managed a private art collection, I saw what professional behaviors are expected from artists by those on the other side of the gallery desk. How to build an effective website, a clean CV, make a postcard or catalog, how to plan and mount an exhibition, write a proposal, or manage one’s art inventory, are some of the many skills that I now apply to assist my fellow artists in their careers.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
That would be my late mentor, Jay Belloli (1944-2021), who was the first Director of Gallery Programs at Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts. I began working under him in 1995 as a college intern, and when my internship ended, I wouldn’t leave. I continued helping with the gallery program, and I gallery sat for a time, until I was eventually hired as Gallery Assistant. With his guidance, I learned about exhibition planning and overall art administration, and I got an inside view into the art movements and conversations that were occurring in Los Angeles at the time. Over the years since, he was thoughtful and honest with me when he critiqued my artwork, and he was generous with his time editing my grant and residency proposals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jennifergunlock.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifergunlock/
Image Credits
(Self portrait image “IMG_8563”) Courtesy of Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY, 2025
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.