Jen Orpin graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1996 with a degree in Fine Art. She lives in Manchester and joined Rogue Artists’ Studios in 2000.
Her work is held in public and private collections both nationally and internationally and has been accepted into several Open Art exhibitions. Amongst these are the Jackson’s Open Painting Prize, The New Light Art Prize, The ING discerning Eye Exhibition, The Wells Art Contemporary, The Wales Open, The London Group Open and the first and second HOME Exhibitions where she was shortlisted on both occasions. She’s also exhibited in galleries in Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Walsall, Liverpool, London and Seoul and was selected for the 2023 /24 Royal Academy Summer Show.
In November 2019 she co-founded Rogue Women and co-curated a group show of 50 female artists from Rogue including invited guest artists from all over the UK. The exhibition then returned in 2023 and 2024 with Rogue Women 2 and 3 as well as presenting them both at The Manchester Contemporary.
She was recently acquired by Manchester Art Gallery through the TMC Art Fund and now hangs in the Lowry and Valette room. Jen has had four solo shows including her first international solo show in Seoul this year and a solo presentation at Art Busan, South Korea and her fifth and first London solo show is opening on the 2nd Nov 2024.
Her motorway paintings have featured in several publications including the Guardian online and twice in the Observer’s New Review and has also featured on BBC Radio 6Music and ITVX news. She’s a co-founder of Rogue Women and founder of A Small Space, a member of MAFA and is currently represented by Saul Hay Gallery and Jari Lager Gallery.
Public collections include:
Manchester Art Gallery
New Art Gallery Walsall
Statement
‘The structures I focus on, often constructed from concrete and metal, brutal in nature are familiar landmarks that straddle well-travelled motorways and roads.
The motorway bridge, often unchanged and built to last, offer sturdiness and a consistent presence that spans decades in frequently developed and changing environments. They may be accompanied by the addition of graffiti; protest slogans or nature and weeds might have taken hold only adding to this presence and giving these brutalist landmarks the enduring quality of a monument. By documenting and recording these structures using the language of painting, I aim to expand our perceptions and viewpoints and challenge how we look at these structures in our everyday landscapes and draw on the connections we make through our memories and belonging to these places.
The active human element is notably absent – cars and people are stripped away, leaving only the motorways, landmarks, and remanence of a human presence. The absence of human life accentuates these elements, shifting the focus to the intrinsic beauty of the pathways and their significance in our lives. This intentional removal invites viewers to contemplate the relationship between the landscape and their own experiences. The roads and bridges become metaphorical for the emotions tied to travel and change, allowing the audience to project their memories, aspirations, and reflections onto the environments depicted. Framed within the empty motorway, these depictions of bridges articulate their role as a transformative connector, symbolizing opportunity for change.
The visual representations of these landscapes in my paintings and the framed view from the car make up and form the basis of visceral memories and nostalgia, liminal spaces that occupy the landscape between the places and people that mean the most to us. The importance of these external landscapes is often mirrored by the internal dialogue of the driver and passenger with the confinements of the car at times offering an intimate confessional space. The mundanity of these every day actions often belies the truth of deep routed emotions that come with these well-travelled routes and connections to these familiar places. In these paintings I aim to portray this feeling, emotionalism is a key element in the success of each one and as a viewer you are forced to look down the road as its sole traveler and undertake each journey as your own.’