JenClare Gawaran
Adjunct Faculty/Lecturer
BFA, Michigan State University; MFA, Wayne State University
JenClare Gawaran holds a BFA in art education from Michigan State University and an MFA in printmaking from Wayne State University. As an educator, she teaches drawing, design and printmaking the College for Creative Studies, Wayne State University, Oakland University and Macomb Community College. Starting in 2010, JenClare began to volunteer to run a contemporary art gallery in the Southwest Detroit and Islandview neighborhoods of Detroit, of which she did for almost a decade. More recently, she has been serving on the Board of Trustees at the Anton Art Center. In addition to curatorial and gallery work, her prints have been shown locally in galleries such as the Detroit Artist Market and The Scarab Club. JenClare has also shown nationally and abroad, from Los Angeles & New York to Jerusalem, Finland & China. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Detroit Institute of Arts, Wayne State University and the Guangdong Museum of Art in China.
Professional Experience
My work is the result of much personal and internal research about my identity. Having been born and raised in the suburbs of the Midwest, I grew up within the bubble of an ideal and romanticized American childhood. We basically had the green lawn and white picket fence, I was taught all about our Founding Fathers and George Washington admitting to chopping down that cherry tree, and my summers were spent taking family road trips across the United States. Although I knew my family was different than those of my Caucasian friends, I didn’t put much thought into my Filipino background. I work with the printmaking process because I find the medium to be the most fluid with my thought and creative processes. The fact that one can almost infinitely recreate the same image in printmaking is also interesting to me. As a suburban child, I was surrounded by the same duplicated houses in my neighborhood. Through serigraph, chine colle, collage and drawing, I layer and combine visual cues and symbolism of cultural identity and gender expectations to create auto-biographical work. Images of Filipino textile patterns and trinkets, combined with stereotypical symbols of Filipino, Asian and American culture, work together to create scenes that either stem from my childhood memories or reflect how I think I fit into and between these cultures and identities. My work is honest – it’s simply the result of me trying to make sense of past memories, experiences and thoughts. The process of creating my work has become a vehicle for personal reflection, and helps me better understand what has shaped me to be the person I am today.
Significant Publications, Presentations and Exhibitions
Portraits of Japanese Feminism, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
In The Office, The Kresge Foundation, Troy, MI
Synergy: From Manila to Acapulco, Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, IL
People Stories, Grosse Pointe Art Center, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI
The Printer’s Devil, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
The Essential Self: Meditations on the Politics of Identity, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
Heads & Tails, Spread Art @ detroit contemporary, Detroit, MI
Layers of Identity, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA & Jerusalem Print Workshop, Jerusalem
Transient ID: DETNYC, Brooklyn, New York
JenClare B. Gawaran: New Work, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
Actual Size Biennial, detroit contemporary, Detroit, MI
Constructed Realities, Paint Creek Center for the Arts, Rochester Hills, MI
Clandestine, Work: Detroit, Detroit, MI
Inspired Detroit, Detroit Creative Corridor Center, A. Alfred Taubman Center, Detroit, MI
EYE TEETH: A Satire on the American Way of Life, Paint Creek Center for the Arts, Rochester, MI
Transcribed Identities: JenClare Gawaran & Nelson Smith, The Art Gallery at the Macomb Center for Performing Arts, Clinton Township, MI
Stone Soup, Work: Detroit, Detroit, MI
Do You Want To Ford The River?, Downtown Initiative for the Arts, Eugene, OR Prints: Now in 3D, Minnesota Center for Book Art, Minneapolis, MN
Category: Printmaking, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL
The Print, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI
(S)edition: Prints as Activism, The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
Los Angeles Printmaking Society 20th National Exhibition, Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Qijiang International Prints Exhibitions, Qijiang Printmaking Institute, Chongqing, China
It’s Not Perfect… But We Try., Work: Detroit, Detroit, MI
Graphica Creativa, Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Jyvaskyla, Finland
Automotive Recycled Technology, Behr America Inc., Troy, MI
The FEAST, Pittsburgh State University, Pittsburgh, PA
Kentucky National, Eagle Gallery, Murray, KY
Salt City Dozen, Coyne Gallery, Syracuse, NY
Pacific States Biennial, University of Hawai’i at Hilo, Hilo, HI
Social Discourse: An Arts Experience, Lansing Art Gallery, Lansing, MI
Printing Image II, Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Topeka, KS
Texas National, The Art Center, Nacogdoches, TX
WAS Calendar Collective Print Portfolio, Park Trades Center, Kalamazoo, MI
Avant Garde, Grosse Pointe Art Center, Grosse Pointe, MI
Lumens, Detroit Artists Marker, Detroit, MI
Shrinking Cities [?]: Wayne State University Responds, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Detroit, MI
The Laboratory, The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
Unification Project Presents: Can Your Hear Me?, 555 Gallery, Detroit, MI
Feast Your Eyes, (SCENE) Metrospace, East Lansing, MI
