With a new exhibit titled “Womanfest Destiny,” New Mexico-based sculptor and oil painter Jennifer Nehrbass takes viewers on a journey through the West, looking at its landscapes and trailblazing from a female perspective. The exhibit, which plays off Nehrbass’s continued body of work called “Pioneer Project,” opens Friday. Dec. 20, at the Julie Nester Gallery, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. “I have nine paintings and three sculptures in the exhibit, and I’m still working on the last one,” she said with a laugh. “It’s been a busy year.”The artist, who will be at the gallery for an opening reception on Dec. 28, has created works based on the “Pioneer Project” concept since 2018.“I always do things with themes, and this one one was kind of interesting to me,” she said. “I thought it would be better for me to continue this as an overarching theme for my work, so I could paint some landscapes and portraits and create some sculptures.”Each one of those mediums encapsulates different aspects of Nehrbass’s works.“I’m going to keep it going until I decide to do something else,” she said.When creating a painting, Nehrbass starts with an idea.“I work from what I call ‘mediated images,’” she said. “I’ll go online and look at landscapes with sunsets and, maybe, cholla cacti, and then I’ll make folders and files for myself.”Nehrbass will then think of different ways she can combine those ideas into an original landscape that expresses a bit of mystery and narrative.“I’ll piece these things together until I come up with the correct work and right composition that I see in my mind’s eye, and then I’ll start to paint,” she said. “These compositions tend to be a little more emotive, especially the landscapes, because I try to romanticize them.”Nehrbass’s idea of romanticizing western landscapes was inspired by Hudson River School’s German-American painter Albert Bierstadt, who painted vista sceneries in an effort to entice people to come out West during the late 1800s.“I love the romantic nature of these landscapes because I love being out West,” said Nehrbass, who grew up in Wisconsin. “I didn’t grow up here, so to me it’s amazing to hike in the mountains, and once you hike through a valley there will always be another vista that comes upon you. I love that (it feels like) there is always a hope of a future that can be the next beautiful view or the end of the hike.”“A Valley for Claire” is one of the oil paintings by New Mexico-based artists Jennifer Nehrbass that is part of the “Womanfest Destiny” exhibit currently showing at the Julie Nester Gallery. Credit: Photo courtesy of Jennifer NehrbassNehrbass also included portraits of women in the Julie Nester Gallery exhibit.The concept poses the idea of what western U.S. history might have looked like if women controlled the expansion and narrative, she said. “When we walk into a museum of western history there is always a portrait of a white wealthy man, a landscape that represents the area and some artifact the settlers took with them,” she said. “So I play with this narrative by only painting women as the protagonist.”The two works “Garden” and “Millicent” were painted after Nehrbass found out that Wyoming and Montana were the first states to allow women to vote.“One reason among many is that women in these states had power via wealth, (and) some of this wealth came from running their own brothels,” she said. “‘Millicent’ has layers of western tropes. The name came from a wealthy woman in Taos, Millicent Rogers. The gold chain is symbolic of the gold rush. The statue behind the figure comes from the Aztec culture, (and) I wanted to have an Asian woman to represent the forgotten history of many Chinese laborers who built the railroads.”Nehrbass also makes a point not to paint Native-American women, because they have had enough of people appropriating their culture, she said.“But I like to have different people represented who have made the West what it is,” she said. “A lot of those narratives like the Black cowboys, and an old Jewish population in Albuquerque and the Spanish who have come here, sometimes get forgotten. So it’s those stories that I’m wanting to tell is what drives the art.”“Millicent,” an oil painting inspired by a wealthy woman from Taos, New Mexico, features imagery that symbolizes the Gold Rush, Aztec culture and Chinese railroad workers. The work is party of Nehrbass’ “Womanfest Destiny” exhibit that is showing at the Julie Nester Gallery through Jan. 28. Credit: Photo courtesy of Jennifer NehrbassNehrbass’s portraits also have a strict criteria.“It’s always about women who are usually pretty active in their gaze, because I want them to create a relationship with the viewer,” she said. “There is always only one woman in the painting because if you use more than one, the work becomes a narrative between the figures in the work.”The exhibit also features sculptures created out of found wood and rock, according to Nehrbass.“A lot of those pieces come from my yard,” she said. “We have acequias, which are basically waterways, in New Mexico, and sometimes branches will fall into them or someone will throw stumps in. Sometimes these pieces of wood have some really neat shapes.”Nehrbass will play with a rough piece of wood and sand it down until it’s “buttery smooth.”“Then I’ll use some great wood stains that are not natural to the wood and piece them together with the rocks,” she said. “It’s about balance — but an improbable balance. I like playing with the tension between the heavy and the light materials, and the small and large, to create something that looks like it may fall over, kind of like the hoodoo and balanced-rock formations you see in the West.”Nehrbass knows when a work is finished, when she can’t think of anything else to do with it.“It’s when you’ve exhausted any problem solving,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for a while, so I can usually tell when all the areas that need to be finished are finished.”‘Womanfest Destiny’ exhibit by Jennifer NehrbassWhen: Through Jan. 28 Where: Julie Nester Gallery, 1280 Iron Horse Drive Phone: 435-649-7855 Web: julienestergallery.comAlso:Artist reception with Jennifer NehrbassWhen: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 28 Where: Julie Nester Gallery, 1280 Iron Horse Drive Phone: 435-649-7855 Web: julienestergallery.com and jennifernehrbass.comThe post ‘Womanfest Destiny’ sees the West through a female artist’s eye appeared first on Park Record.