Jennifer Hand

You are the Light that Came From Inside Me

Blown glass, latex, LEDs

"Glass and latex are both barrier materials. Work in this series explores barriers to intimacy, starting with the substitution of silicone for nipple in western infancy and ending with the deficit of both platonic and sensual touch in our increasingly isolated lives.

I make art about the cultural expectations that govern the lives and bodies of women. I question why our society sanctifies the mother, reviles the whore, and refuses to recognize that we are capable of being both at once. The duality of hot glass inspires me with its sensuality, unruliness, and inclination to make one hell of a scene. Using molten fire and a robust pallet of pink kitschy materials, I confront viewers with the uncomfortable realities of modern womanhood."

– Jennifer Hand

About the artist

Jennifer Hand

Jennifer Hand is a Norfolk, Virginia-based glass artist, writer, curator, mother, and veteran. Living and traveling abroad have awakened her curiosity about how different cultural taboos exert influence on the lives and bodies of women. Her creative practice uses the allure of glass in a lush palette of pinks to explore and resist sociocultural pressures upon the lives and bodies of women. Both lover and mother, Jennifer reminds the viewer that her daughters are not the result of immaculate conception, but conceived with the same passion she pours into her work. Jen holds a BFA in craft with a minor in art history from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is an alumna of the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio Assistant Residency and a 2018 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts undergraduate fellow.

Jennifer is the conference and events manager for the Glass Art Society, a board member of the 757 Creative Reuse Center, a co-founder of the Lil Truck of Tools, the co-founder of the 757 Street Art Battle, and a masters candidate for the critical craft studies program at Warren Wilson College.