Artist Statement
My work is abstract ink drawings and 3-dimensional paperworks ranging in size from a few inches to monumental scale. I am drawn to the tension between micro and macro, order and disorder, density and vacancy, and more obliquely, community and isolation, specificity and universality.
For the paperwork sculptural pieces, I cut, rip, sew and fold existing drawings into layered collages, 3D structures, hanging works, and incorporate the techniques of hand-made books. I sometimes add fun materials like pom poms and bells as the artwork demands. The incremental piecing together of small elements into large works is a throughline.
The drawings are abstract fields created by the slow aggregation of small marks such as stippling, scribbling, tiny circles, dots and lines. Arm’s Length is a series that explores the limits of my reach across a single sheet of paper. Another series suggests sky’s-the-limit potential by cobbling together dozens of one-foot-squares into grids. Done freehand, all of my drawings reveal every wobble and hesitation of the pen, teetering on the edge of chaos, gaining a semblance of control through organizational principals such as columns, grids, and squares. My drawings are meant to be displayed unframed, simply pinned to the wall. Without the formality of glass and frames, the work becomes more accessible. Even though works on paper are inherently fragile, I want to present my art in a way that that doesn’t feel precious or intimidating, and invites the viewer in for a close unmediated look.
My artwork has been described, by turns, as obsessive, meditative, austere, disorienting, playful. All starting with the simplest of materials: a pen and a piece of paper.
Bio
Jennifer Cadoff returned to school to earn her BFA in 2005, after working as a magazine editor (Mademoiselle, Self) and award-winning writer for more than two decades. She lived and worked in Princeton NJ for many years, and now divides her time between NorthWest Connecticut and Westchester County, NY.
Jennifer’s work has been selected for, and won awards from, regional and national juried shows. She was invited to participate in “America Through Artists’ Eyes” at the New Jersey State Museum, and “Jersey Women Artists Now: Contemporary Visions” at The George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University. She was a juried member of the Princeton Artists Alliance from 2012-15, and the co-op Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville, NJ, from 2005-14, where she served as co-president for 5 years. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Mercer County Culture & Heritage Collection and Emory Health in Atlanta. She remains a signature member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Society.
Now in the Westchester/Connecticut area, Jennifer is a member of the Crit Lab in Portchester NY, directed by artist, curator and professor Patricia Miranda. She has been juried into Silvermine Artists Guild in New Canaan CT and Five Points Center for the Visual Arts in Torrington CT . Her work has been selected five times for Art of the Northeast (AoNE) at the Silvermine Arts Center (2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 - Award of Excellence) and 2022). In 2019, also at Silvermine, Jennifer's work was selected for the national PAPER show, and given an Award of Merit, by Jennifer Farrell, Associate Curator Drawings and Prints, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Her work was also selected for Nor'Easter at The New Britain Museum of American Art in 2019 and 2023. She has had solo shows at the Harrison Public Library in Harrison, NY (2016 and 2021); the Mt. Kisco Public Library in Mt. Kisco NY (2018) and the Norfolk (CT) Public Library in 2023. During the COVID pandemic, her drawings were included in virtual exhibitions at the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art (HVMOCA) in Peekskill NY and the Hammond Museum in North Salem NY, and was a featured artist member of the Katonah Museum of Art.