Jennifer Brewer Stone lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and son. She has been painting since 2008, focusing on bright color, texture, and natural subjects. She has been collected around the world, with solo shows ‘Blooming Brightly’ at Strathmore Mansion and ‘Fantasy of the Real’ at the Art League of Alexandria, VA. She had her own studio gallery for 6 years at the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Her Dance of Life series is featured in public art in the D.C. area, on vintage police call boxes in downtown D.C., and on traffic control boxes in Alexandria, VA. Her large resin artwork ‘Magenta Sea’ was granted placement for the American Geosciences Institute. She has shown most recently at Superfine DC 2023 and Tephra ICA Arts Festival in 2023 & 2025.
Statement
My most recent Grace series is a culmination of working with different media separately over the past 15 years. My artistic loves highlight nature’s gems: bright color, texture, and transparency. A small bite of the yawning & vast natural world. There is so much magic under the sea and I love capturing it; really taking a close look and allowing us all to marvel at what swims beneath the surface.
I layer molding paste, then oil paint, and on some pieces such as Jellyfish Rising, I layer resin on parts of the painting before finishing with hyper-realistic oil painting on the surface. I largely paint on panel. I use thin layers and dry brushes at times to keep the color sharp and the edges crisp. Jellyfish Rising and all the Grace series explores water in many forms through texture & transparency: the way waves look when seen from a plane, watching the bank of a river or a cresting wave in the sea, and the wave’s tiny droplets. I apply the paste with a large palette knife, then remove some by using a pull up motion to create this wavy texture. The tentacles of the jellyfish were applied with a small liner brush. This piece overall took 140 hours to complete over the course of a year.
Four of the nudibranchs I painted—Dirona, Doto Donut, Janolus, & Ianthina—can be grouped together in a square to dance around each other, as do the Blue and Orange Mandarinfish. These circular patterns represent the patterns of life. What I feel and wish for now is grace: the gracefulness of these creatures swimming through the ocean, grace that they exist. Grace for us all, continuing to create & experience others’ creation is a lifeline that lifts us all from the mundane.