Jennifer Strings is a mixed media visual artist based in Harlem, New York. With a career spanning 25 years as an art educator in New York City’s public and private schools, Jen’s teaching practice has given her the independence to live and create art on her own terms. She holds a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from SUNY Purchase College and an MA in Art Education from CUNY City College.

Jen’s work has been characterized as magical realism, combining dream-like elements with highly detailed renderings. Jen describes her creative practice as “mostly stream of consciousness” informed by a lifetime of drawing and painting.” Using herself as her main subject in a variety of mediums and styles acts as a catalyst, tying her body of work together. Her artistic influences include personal life experiences, music, art history (with a particular focus on Italian Renaissance art), and a community of fellow artists she follows on social media. At the core of her practice is a lifelong commitment to reflection, meditation, spontaneity, and sharing.

For the past four and a half years, Jen has focused on creating short animated vignettes as an extension of her works on paper. These animations, titled The Doll Chronicles, combine sculpting, sewing, filming, editing, digital drawing, singing, and animating—pushing the boundaries of her creative practice. Jen describes her stop motion animation practice as experimental and as a way to access other dimensions, creating portals through layered audio, miniature worlds, and personally relevant narratives acted out by ball jointed dolls. In these miniature spaces, a whole world has been blossoming. At the core of these “moving paintings” are cycles of being, an inner dialogue between the past, present and a much dreamed about future playing themselves out like messages from the great beyond. She has come to think of the last decade worth of work as “Conversations with Myself”.

Jen’s work bridges traditional and new media, blending personal introspection with universal themes of self-exploration and alternate realities. Her exploration of magical realism, the subconscious, and multi-sensory experiences resonates with a contemporary audience drawn to immersive, multi-disciplinary art. By combining self-reflection with the use of new media like stop-motion animation and layered audio, Jen’s work engages with today’s digital and interactive art movements, while also staying rooted in timeless artistic traditions. Her unique ability to create visual and auditory portals invites viewers to embark on their own journeys of discovery and introspection.

Currently Jen is working on her first 20 minute long animated artwork that has room for growth into more episodes. Jen would like to credit the doll artists whose creations feature in her animated artworks: Elizaveta Fastovets/ HolyANoraDolls and Eli Effenberger/ Marmite Sue Doll Menagerie and various other gifted bjd’s from the artist Stacy Leigh.