Biography

Jen Spencer is a Maryland-based artist whose work centers on pop surrealist paintings and drawings. Her years as an English teacher inform the narrative, storybook feel of her characters and compositions.

She moves between painting, drawing, clay, and occasional digital work, but painting remains her primary medium. Jen’s visual language is shaped by nature, children’s literature, folklore, witches, and a persistent sense of whimsy.

Making art is how I process and understand my life. When I draw or paint, I’m able to step back and think about big themes like birth, death, love, time, and memory, while also paying close attention to tiny, everyday details—a leaf’s veins, the soft hair on a child’s cheek, or the way light gradually turns to darkness on a summer evening.

Painting in particular gives me a sense of calm and focus that I rarely find elsewhere. I cherish the moments when I become completely absorbed in the work, shoulders sore but mind clear, fully immersed in that elusive “flow” state.

Much like music can move us or transport us, creating art feels like pulling back a curtain on a different level of consciousness where I can quiet outside pressures and simply “suppose.” That act of imagining is a kind of seed, and when it’s nurtured, it grows into strange and beautiful inner gardens. My hope is to keep tending those gardens and invite others to wander through them with me.