"Love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination." bell hooks

Jen DePaolo is an artist and community organizer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work celebrates identity, connection and survival. She works for a more empathic and equitable society through her outreach, studio practice and collaborative events and projects. Jen earned her BA in Fine Arts from Houghton College and later moved to Albuquerque to pursue her MFA from the University of New Mexico. She participated in UNM’s Land Arts of the American West program as a Teaching Assistant and maintains a strong ecological focus in her work. In 2008, she held her MFA exhibition, Home Economics at the Harwood Art Center where now serves as Director of Outreach.

Jen grew up in a working class family in Buffalo NY, the oldest of six children. She earned a Liberal Arts Degree in Art and Writing from Houghton College (now Houghton University) and paid off that degree by working as a Nanny and Social Worker. She later moved to Albuquerque to pursue an MFA in sculpture at the University of New Mexico where she also began a lifelong study of race, class and gender in the US. Jen participated in UNM’s Land Arts of the American West program as a Teaching Assistant and maintain a strong ecological focus in her work. National Exhibition Highlights include: Westward Ho, Invitational at the Wayne County Art Center, Evocative Garden, NCECA Biennial, Beyond the Brickyard at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana; Small Favors at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. My writing has been published in Ceramics, Art and Perception, Ceramics Monthly, Pottery Illustrated and Edible Magazine.

Since her 2008 MFA exhibition, Home Economics, Jen has examined the impact of capitalism on the people and ecosystems that bear the burden of industrial production and the ways power and privilege shape communities across our connected and interdependent planet. Her work endeavors to find alternative modes that center our shared health, safety and wellbeing. Her creative practice is broad and includes professional cooking, gardening, local herbalism, independent research, and writing in addition to an interdisciplinary studio practice across various methods and materials.