ARTIST STATEMENT
Jennifer Carland creates hand-drawn, map-inspired artworks that explore the relationship between people, place, memory, and belonging. Drawing from backgrounds in fine art and urban planning, she transforms recognizable city streets, neighborhoods, and landscapes into vibrant abstract compositions that reveal the hidden systems shaping our experience of place.
" All of my work begins with real geography. I base everything off of places I've traveled to, researched, or want to visit.
I sketch out the basic street grid and draw over it with many layers. Sometimes I use acrylic paint, watercolors, art markers, pastels, oil pastels, charcoal, ink, etc.
Nothing I make is AI-generated. I draw it all. It takes me weeks to complete a piece. I sometimes refer to my work as "love letters to cities".
My style has changed a little bit over the years but the idea remains the same - The map is transformed into an abstract piece of artwork."
- Jennifer Carland
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EDUCATION
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Graduate Certificate, Urban Planning
Tufts University, Medford, MA
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Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA
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Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Avenues to a Great City
Community Gallery, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, 2025
Additional solo and group exhibitions available upon request.
CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
Artwork included in corporate collections and commercial installations in:
- Atlanta, GA
- Austin, TX
- Boulder, CO
- Houston, TX
- Las Vegas, NV
- San Antonio, TX
- San Francisco, CA
- St. Louis, MO
Additional locations available upon request.
"Maps are important. They tell stories.
They are the physical representations of where we spend our lives. Where we have been. Where we are now. Where we want to go to next.
They show our childhood homes, our first apartments, our college towns, our vacations with loved ones, our camping trips, our solo adventures, where we got our first job, where we got married, and so much more.
I don't want to simply reproduce a map. I want my work to express the emotion of being in that location."
- Jennifer Carland
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