Jen Bootwala
Jen Bootwala is a graphic designer, fiber artist, and educator whose work explores the connection between fiber as a paper medium and fiber as a textile medium. Through research and process-based making, she uses hand-knitting and spinning to visually represent gendered labor. Her current work is concerned with contributions that are not equally rewarded or acknowledged due to differences in identity, background, and the systemic metrics for which work is valued. Through her own labor, she seeks to make visible the work of others. Centering an interdisciplinary approach in her practice, she looks to move beyond categorical boundaries and focus on moments of intersection and creative convergence.
What initially sparked your interest in art?
A love of reading and writing activated my interest in art and I was always interested in personal documentation and the passage of time. In high school I took up traditional photography and found I could manipulate images in the same way I could craft stories. I began to experiment with poetry and recognize that text can function as image. Design helped me integrate my writing and photography into a more expansive practice.
What connects your work together and what keeps you creating?
Curiosity and a deep interest in materials and research. What can it do, how is it made, what does it mean, and where does it come from are all questions that excite me.
Describe your work using three words.
Labor-intensive, accessible, interdisciplinary.
What are you most proud of as an artist, whether it's a specific moment or who you are as an artist?
I'm finally learning how to tune out some of the noise in my life and work at my own pace. This is easier said than done so I'm proud to see myself taking my own advice. I don't think art is always born from a moment of urgency; it can also come from intention that is slow to build.
If you could be in a two-person exhibition with any artist from history, who would it be and why?
Hilma af Klint. Her work has mesmerized me since the first time I encountered her paintings at the New Museum in New York. Her intuitive methodology and mastery of color and form still feel completely singular and visionary. There's a softness to her work that I'd like to explore with fiber.
