The artist at Naumann Gallery. Photos courtesy of the artist.
At first, it was the gigantic tiger portrait that caught a viewer’s eye.
In the piece, amber eyes exude a honeyed, molten heat. The whiskers are lightly etched into the portrait in a careful manner, while the tiger itself is full of meticulous detail. In the background, there is a bamboo tree and leaves with mixtures of forest green, hunter green, and seaweed green to highlight the tones of the tiger’s habitat.
The tiger, far removed from his normal habitat, is part of a growing body of work by the artist Yan Jennifer, which popped up at the Naumann Gallery in North Branford last weekend. Inspired by her love for nature and current interest in animal paintings, the series marks a personal and professional triumph for the artist, who has been creating in the wake of personal illness. The show is curated by Mufid Bohorquez, a graphic designer who is the gallery’s creative director.
Naumann Gallery sits at 279 Branford Rd. in the former home of Saint Augustine Chapel. In addition to Jennifer’s work, it has an upcoming exhibition of work by Branford artist Marc Potocsky next month. More information about that is available here.
“This show was a personal milestone,” Jennifer said in an email after the show. “After facing serious health challenges that nearly took my life, creating this body of work became a way to push forward and prove to myself what I’m capable of.”
“I embraced the pressure because it challenged me to grow and to be fully present in the process. Sharing these works is not about showing them, but about leaving something meaningful behind and connecting with others in a real way.”
Once here, she worked in fashion, where her talents included makeup and styling. She loved it, she said. And at the same time, “it’s not stable enough to make a living.”
Three years into her time in the U.S., Jennifer began teaching herself how to paint through a series of tutorials on YouTube, a skill that she has kept building out over a decade. She also became a licensed massage therapist in Connecticut, with offices of her practice, Western and Eastern Massage Therapy LLC, that are now located in Branford and North Haven.
For the last several years, she’s also been coping with dysautonomia—that’s a cumbersome term for a disturbance of the autonomic nervous system—that has in multiple studies been linked to long Covid, or the long-term immune response from the Covid-19 virus.
“People can’t see my disability,” Jennifer said. “It affects my ability to work and live normally, but it’s hidden behind a smile.”
The exhibition gave her a chance to push herself, despite moments of personal discomfort, pain, and exhaustion. In the past three years, she’s become increasingly interested in portraits of animals, from lambs and cows that one might see on a farm to large mammals like buffalo and tigers (dogs and cats are a favorite too)
As she installed her work last Thursday, that was on full display. Outside, rain poured down from the low-hanging, dreary sky, a chilly and wet contrast to the peaceful work waiting just beyond the building’s huge front doors. On the road, the afternoon had become a soundtrack of cars wooshing by and heavy rain droplets hitting the pavement.
Inside the gallery, Jennifer was quiet for a moment before jumping into a conversation around the exhibition. Already, a number of small, round pink stickers appeared on certain pieces, a sign that the pieces were “presold”—that some buyers had already bought the work, or had dibs on it.
In the main gallery, dozens of colorful artworks beckoned: a horse in profile, its mane an explosion of bright blue and purple color; a bumblebee, its black and yellow fuzz visible, hovering over a quintet of lilac-colored flower petals; a turtle gliding through the crystalline water, small fish beneath its flippers as gem-colored algae sways with the tide.
Jennifer is constantly making new work, and the exhibition was no exception: during the weekend’s show, she planned to complete a painting she had started beforehand. On a canvas near her, a half-finished lion was brushed with golden hues, blue, white, brown, black orange and a touch of purple colors to stand out in the middle of the room.
As she soaked in the moment, gallery owner Dana Baldwin Naumann headed from the downstairs level to the main level. Each step creaked one by one.
“I have very many artists who want a show here, and I am very careful who I select,” Naumann said. He added that he is delighted to have Jennifer’s work on display.