Gendron Jensen
(River Falls, Wisconsin, 1939 - )
North America, American
Gendron Jensen has gained acclaim for meticulous studies of bones, which have been described as “at once highly detailed and abstract, evok[ing] a primal connection to nature and its many mysteries.” The artist, who is largely self-taught, creates large-scale pencil drawings as well as lithographs drawn on stone. Their recurrent subjects are shells and animal skeletons, which may be shown individually or combined to suggest new creatures. Jensen was fascinated by nature as a child and recalls his discovery of a rodent skull by a lake as a 6-year-old as a defining experience. As a young man, he joined a Benedictine monastery; when asked to leave, he chose to live in isolation on an abandoned mink farm in rural Minnesota. There Jensen pursued his passion for drawing; in 1987, he moved to New Mexico, where he began making lithographs that were printed at Tamarind Institute nearby. Other collaborations the artist has undertaken include work with blue whale relics at the Smithsonian Institution and with scientists studying wolf and moose populations on Isle Royale National Park in Michigan.
Jensen is featured in an award-winning documentary film (Poustina, The Art of Gendron Jensen) and has received awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1989), Quebec Ministry of Culture (1993) and Hirshhorn Foundation. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout the United States and is represented in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Cleveland Art Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Vadito, New Mexico
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