Jennifer Nehrbass

Jennifer Nehrbass (American, b. 1970) is a painter living and working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was born in West Bend, Wisconsin in 1970. She received her B.S. in Art and Textile Design from the University of Wisconsin, a MA in Painting from New York University, and a MFA in painting from the University of New Mexico. She spent 10 years working as a Design Director at Ralph Lauren before pursuing her art career. Her work is represented by Brunnhofer Gallery in Linz, Austria, Julie Nester Gallery in Park City, Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles, Visions West in Denver and Levy Gallery in Albuquerque. Her work is in many private collections in the United States as well as Europe. Her work was added into the Center for Feminist Art: Feminist Art Base at the Brooklyn Museum.

Jennifer Nehrbass’s paintings use style as a sublime source of tension within beauty. They probe what it means to see and be seen in ways that feel both timeless and distinctly contemporary. Within her work, ambiguity, realism, and fantasy hover in a charged atmosphere, creating narrative moments reminiscent of magic realism.

Nehrbass’s romantic vision of the Western landscape is informed by Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt, the German-American artist known for his sweeping vistas that, in the late 1800s, encouraged migration to the American West.

She explains, “The one hundredth meridian historically marked the beginning of the West—the point where the frontier began and society ended. This invisible line signified the start of the endless landscape, one filled with unlimited possibilities, resources, and opportunities. In this series, I examine the European exploration of the West through a female perspective and, in doing so, create a fictional narrative. Objects housed in historical institutions are reexamined and reinterpreted. Landscape paintings once used to romanticize and politicize notions of Manifest Destiny are now recreated. The images are constructed from multiple locations, fused into idealized vistas—moments in time captured for posterity. In an era of climate crisis, these idealized scenes may offer future viewers a distorted picture of past environments.”