jen e, born Jennifer Kuroki, is an artist based in Los Angeles. She has been making art for over 20 years in L.A. and Japan. Her time abroad sparked an ongoing conversation between old and new, tradition and relevance, elevated and mundane, practical and spiritual. Three of those years she spent living and studying ceramics in Yokohama and Tokyo, training to throw on a banding wheel and to man an anagama kiln (wood-burning). This time in Japan allowed her to develop a whimsical style, most informed by her everyday visual experience.
Living and working in southern California has also informed her work which has become increasingly more animated, incorporating anthropomorphization and bright saturated colors. With a background in graphic design and art direction, her eye tends to focus on patterns and her canvasses can take many forms. Beginning as an oil painter, studying graphic design, moving into ceramics and applying her designs into other mediums, she is interested in seeing how her work plays with the environment and interacts with the viewer.