ARTIST STATEMENT
I am drawn to moments when something is still becoming clear: a child turning toward or away, a body moving through a landscape, an ordinary place charged by memory, a gesture that suggests a relationship beyond the frame. My work often begins with photographs and lived experience, but painting allows me to loosen their certainty and ask what else an image might hold.
I think about attention as a relational act—how looking closely can bring us into contact with memory, beauty, grief, belonging, and one another. Figures are often partially obscured or seen from behind, leaving space for the viewer to enter rather than simply observe.
Across my work, I return to the places where things meet: past and present, self and other, beauty and unease, what can be seen and what remains just beyond our knowing.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jena Doolas is a Chicago-based artist, educator, social worker, and equity facilitator with Greek and Sephardic Jewish roots. Her work explores childhood, memory, belonging, and the relationships that shape how we move through the world. Through painting, photography, and narrative, she creates images that linger in moments before certainty—where attention itself becomes an act of care. Her work in education, social work, and equity informs a practice grounded in relationship, curiosity, and an awareness of whose experiences are seen, held, or overlooked. Nature, pattern, and everyday spaces become places of encounter, inviting viewers to pause, look closely, and consider how beauty can deepen our awareness of one another and the world we share.
© Jena Doolas