Jean Lowe

“’Conceptual – Decorative’ is how I would describe the artistic tradition I work in. I’m engaged with specific social/political subject matter, (particularly our relationship with other species and the environment, and how gender plays into that equation), and aesthetically, how a generous, decoratively informed, painterly and installation oriented visual esthetic can uniquely carry this content. It’s a pragmatic choice; I use the visual language of the home to critique the behavior of its inhabitants. In hybridizing elements of installation, decoration (particularly that of the 17th to 19th centuries), and political/social art traditions, my commitment is to continue making contemporary artwork for sale that is both entertaining and seductive as well as intellectually provocative.” -Jean Lowe

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.

Jean Lowe received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and was a lecturer there until 2008. 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 has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. A survey of Lowe’s work, Your Place in the Multiverse, opened at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University in 2021 and traveled to the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, in March 2022. Lowe lives and works in Encinitas, CA.

Artist Portrait: Lile Kvantaliani