Jean Broden

Painting

Contact Information

jeanbrodenart@gmail.com

Phone: (267) 226-1968

https://www.jeanbrodenart.com

Studio

Philadelphia, PA

Recent Work

Artist's Biography

Jean Broden has been creating art all of her life, and oil painting for almost 20 years.She has taken part in a number of group exhibits in the area, and shows her work at a variety of art festivals and on her website: www.jeanbrodenart.com. Broden received a BFA from Moore College of Art & Design in Illustration, and a MA in Art Education from Arcadia University. She has also studied at Studio Incamminati and John Cabot University in Rome. While pursuing her passion for painting, she has also been teaching high school art classes for the last fifteen years in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Broden’s works are all created in oil on canvas, as she feels this medium gives her paintings vibrancy and flexibility during the painting process. The color palette is wide-ranging, sometimes pushed and exaggerated to enhance the structures, shapes and lighting effects, sometimes subdued and muted to create mood. The finished work is then framed in re-purposed wood frames created by her husband, Tim Broden. The pair carefully curates each piece, selecting boards that reflect something of the soul of the image before creating the frames.

Artist's Statement

Through the course of an ordinary day, an ordinary life, we move about busily tending to our human needs, bustling back and forth from place to place, tending to the tasks at hand so when we reach our destinations we can race off again to the next leg of the marathon.

Where to go? What to do? Who to see? Many navigate this world without ever even looking up from the technology in their hand, streaming sounds from some outside world through plugs in their ears. Do they see what they pass? Do they notice the things they step over? Look up? I do.

The big world has often felt too big for me, and the world of the Internet - inconceivable. Minutia suits me best. In seeing, studying, interacting with the tiny, the overlooked, the unappreciated beauty that exists everywhereI look, I can feel anchored to the world.

Notice the graceful curves in that railing. See how the shadows settle into the geometric shapes of that cornice. Follow the patterns on the manhole cover. These are my anchors. The ordinary is always extraordinary in my eyes.

My interpretations in paint serve as my way of giving back beauty to these beautiful places and things so deserving of attention. They are my “thank you” notes for still existing in an age of self pre-occupation. I hope that they may give some others a reason to pause on their journeys and take all the wonderful ordinariness in.

Selected Exhibitions

Solo
2019
Passed//Past, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

SawTown Tavern, Philadelphia, PA

2013
Elcy's Cafe, Glenside, PA

2010
People, Places & Things, Langhorne Coffee House, Langhorne, PA

Group
2019
Think Outside the Box, Pocono Mountain Arts Council Annual Member's Show, Cresco, PA
Invitational

2018
Inspired, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Invitational

Winter Artists Show, Art at Valley Lake Gallery, Horsham, PA
Invitational

Think Outside the Box, Pocono Mountain Arts Council Annual Member's Show, Cresco, PA
Invitational

Annual Alumni Show, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Juried

American Identity, Dunning Art Gallery, Monroe County, PA
Juried

2017
Winter Artists Show, Art at Valley Lake Gallery, Horsham, PA
Invitational

NAEA Member Show, Alexandria, VA
Juried

National Heirloom Expo, Santa Rosa, CA
Juried

Trenton Art All Night, Trenton, NJ
Invitational

2016
Winter Artists Show, Art at Valley Lake Gallery, Horsham, PA
Invitational

Trenton Art All Night, Trenton, NJ
Invitational

2015
Trenton Art All Night, Trenton, NJ
Invitational

2014
Small, but not restricted, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Juried

Trenton Art All Night, Trenton, NJ
Invitational

2013
Celebrate Art, Huntingdon Valley, PA
Invitational

2012
Celebrate Art, Huntingdon Valley, PA
Invitational

2011
Celebrate Art, Huntingdon Valley, PA
Invitational

2009
Ocean City Annual Juried Art Show, Ocean City, NJ
Juried

2002
Archdiocesan Faculty Exhibit, Villanova, PA
Invitational

Other
2019
Manayunk Arts Festival, Philadelphia, PA

Art for the Cash Poor, InLiquid Art + Design, Philadelphia, PA

Mayfair Arts Festival, Philadelphia, PA

2018
Sugarloaf Crafts Festival, Oaks, PA

POST @ Tacony LAB, Philadelphia, PA

Manayunk Arts Festival, Philadelphia, PA

Holiday Arts Festival at Skytop Lodge, Skytop, PA