At the Edge of the Studio

Meet the Artist

Jennifer Marbury is a Bahamian artist based primarily in Boston, with a life and practice that move back and forth frequently between Boston and The Bahamas and whose work began with a simple challenge: trying to capture the almost unbelievable color of The Bahamas - luminous water, hard white light and a landscape that can seem exaggerated even when it is not.

Most of her paintings begin with something familiar: water, a horizon, a reflection, a place she has known for years. She is less interested in the obvious beauty itself, than in what creates it: the small details, hidden layers and contradictions beneath the surface that make something more compelling to consider.

One of her teachers in college once painted the same bicycle horn every day for months, and yet no two paintings were quite the same. The lesson stayed with her: familiarity does not mean there is nothing left to discover. A curiosity about what might be overlooked has become an important part of how she works, both in the physical details of a subject and in the less visible ideas they can suggest. A crimson underpainting making turquoise water more luminous, turbulence beneath a glowing surface, or visual intensity held within a calm composition.

Jennifer holds a BFA in Illustration and a master’s degree in Art Education from Rhode Island School of Design. Her visual background also includes work as a luxury buyer and designer for Baha Mar in Nassau and as a stylist and costumer in Boston’s film and television industry.

Working primarily in acrylic and watercolor, her paintings grow out of this habit of looking closely at what lies beneath the immediately visually striking landscapes and at the less obvious layers that give it greater depth and meaning.