Jean Lowe (Past Project)

Tear Stains Be Gone, 2015
7661 Girard Ave

17' x 14'
Charles Myers - Wall Sponsor

In Tear Stains Be Gone, Jean Lowe makes a playful and satirical statement that is both entertaining and intellectually provocative. What at first glance looks like a billboard advertisement is actually Lowe's work taking a stance on societal norms and commercial advertising. "I'm just playing with the idea that you can buy something that's going to make you feel better or transform your life. Spoofing advertising signage is an organic way to drop an image into urban fabric".

Jean Lowe is known for her paintings and installations that showcase commentary on contemporary society in humorous yet cerebral ways. Lowe was born in 1960 in Eureka, California. She received her BA from the University of California Berkeley and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego, where she served as a visiting lecturer from 1992 to 2008. Frequently employing satire, Lowe creates sculptural representations of everyday objects using papier-mâché and paint. She is known for her papier-mâché books and has created a large collection of such with evocative and amusing titles.

She has received numerous awards and grants including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; a California Arts Council grant; the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation Purchase Award; and the CalArts/Alpert Ucross Residency Prize. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla; the California Center for the Arts Museum, Escondido; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and University of California, San Francisco. Her works have exhibited at museums including Madison Center for the Arts; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. She lives and works in San Diego, California.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann