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FASO Collector Recommends: Jennifer Sowders
Biography
Impressionistic acrylic or watercolor LANDSCAPES, and watercolor PORTRAITURE
Growing up on a ‘dead end’ road in the country; Northwest Ohio-native artist, Jennifer Sowders, grew up spending a lot of time studying nature and it’s indelible thread is noted within her painted landscape and figurative series bodies of work.
A 1994 BFA graduate from the Columbus College of Art and Design, she has signature membership in: Ohio Watercolor Society and Watercolor USA Honor Society. She holds associate membership in: Allied Artists, American Impressionist and National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Societies.
New to acrylic landscapes as of 2021, she debuted with an honorable mention in AcrylicWorks 9 : The Best of Acrylic; and bookends the yearly finalist streak in 2026 with a 3rd place Award for AW13. She is also an avid watercolorist, having 2 pieces in the Ohio Arts Council collection.
Other recent accomplishments have been in receiving the Ohio Watercolor Society’s 2025 Silver Medal, 2nd place in the landscape division of the Artists Magazine’s 40th Annual, and Grand Prize in International Artist magazine’s challenge #141 and #149 Landscapes (’24/’25, Two years in a row!). She is currently represented by the Toledo Museum of Art’s Collector Corner, Gallery 317 (Bryan, OH) and is actively welcoming further representation and group show opportunities as well.
Jennifer opens up her Fostoria, Ohio studio and gallery space: MONgallery and Art Studio, every MONday to visitors. She coined “MON” to represent “Middle Of Nowhere” because of her rural location where she lives with husband, Gary and has 3 sons.
“Landscapes” Artist’s Series Statement:
My love of landscape originally developed from the discipline of plein air painting. This discipline was interrupted by Covid lock-downs but became for me a passionate ‘escape’ because, for me, the immersion ‘in’ the landscape is transportive. These days I find myself taking excursions for hiking/reference trips and although I’m working on pieces in the studio, when I hear my viewers say “oh, I want to be there”, I know that I’ve tapped into their need for escape and immersion as well.
I paint lush landscapes whether ‘in the wild’ or structured gardens utilizing two separate veins of medium and substrate, either by watercolor on YUPO or acrylic paints on canvas or panel.
I am attracted to the color and luminous nature that the synthetic paper (YUPO) affords. It also enables me to explore textures, enjoy vibrant color that sets upon the surface in an evaporative fashion, and achieve the ‘lush’ escape I’m going for. Concurrently, the use of acrylics with palette knives, acrylic ink, utilizing a silicone implement to dot paint and even a technique of whipping paint upon the surface with a string pushes me further into an impressionistic expression with the added excitement of thick texture. I purposefully shy away from using a brush with my acrylic paintings as a necessary crutch for the impressionism I love.
Within these 2 vastly different methods and mediums for producing landscapes, I am drawn not only to the beauty within a scene, but am careful to include beckoning elements of light/shadow, repetition and depth. Scenes chosen revolve around a dance of light and shadow and it’s own sense of invitation to explore; pathways are common to include for this reason. Quiet, hidden, reflective/introspective. . .lush; these are things I look for. I am polarized by scenes that make me forget my troubles and I feel “enveloped”, even if just for a moment.
“Genre/Portraiture” Series Artist Statement:
I had been painting landscapes as a way to escape my troubles; and throughout covid, I began to experiment with media, mediums and techniques that I’d never tried before; such as watercolor on Yupo, a synthetic plastic-like paper. I also spent a lot of time with close family (during covid lock-downs) and so my love for genre themes, including portraits, continued to grow and become very personal. This personal nature involves my affections, feelings, and light-hearted approach as my real midwest reality wears upon my sleeve. I consider myself a ‘deep thinker’, but I’m always looking for humor and hope in life.
Although Yupo is known for it’s ease in subtractive painting, I paint in a layered add-on approach. . . very seldomly ‘erasing’ what I’ve laid down. This approach is more painstaking in having to only lay one pass down at a time followed by the time it takes to fully dry in-between passes (because we are talking about evaporation on plastic). . .but this method gives me a distinctive look and feel that is uncommon for most purveyors of Yupo. I also find myself using watercolor pencils and ink as well.
Learn More About Jennifer Sowders
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