Exhibits & Events

Rosemont Collegeis pleased to announce “Lamentations: Paintings by Jennifer Baker,” will be on display at the Patricia M. Nugent Gallery from November 10 –December 4. AnOpening Reception will be held on November 10, 4:00 –7:00 pm, with an artist talk at4:30 pm.

Baker’s exhibit depicts scenes from her Northern Liberties neighborhood, what she describes as “a visual diary of daily life,” including a 7 foot by 18 foot painting of the transformation of Third Street. Baker also features works that she painted during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic while she was serving as a caregiver of her elderly parents.The culmination of this work is another 7 foot by 18 foot painting depicting her parents, sister, another caregiver, and her childhood home.

“These two bodies of work –the loss of neighborhood due to economic devastation and the loss of family due to illness –were conceived and executed separately yet they share a strong visual unity,” said Baker. “Theimmediate subject varies, of course, but both bodies of work reflect the power of place and its effect on the people in it. The loss of place corresponds to the loss of history and memory –the chronicles of our lives, both individually and collectively.”

Jennifer Baker is a painter and sculptor based in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia since 1978. She has exhibited widely throughout the area, including at Art 101 and Pleiades Galleries in New York and Projects Gallery, Nexus Gallery, F.A.N. Gallery, the Crane Arts Building and The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.

In 2014, Baker curated an exhibit about the history of Northern Liberties: “From World’s Workshop to Hipster Mecca and the People in Between” for the Philadelphia History Museum. She is the visual art consultant for “Supper, People on the Move,” a multimedia performance piece by Silvana Cardell funded by the Pew Foundation for Arts & Heritage. Baker created “Portraits of People on the Move” a companion exhibit of stories and photographs of Philadelphia-area immigrants. After opening in Philadelphia, “Supper” and “Portraits” toured throughout the country as well as in the Dominican Republic. In 2019, Baker had her first solo museum exhibition at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, PA: “Third Street: Paintings and Monoprints by Jennifer Baker.”

Baker has received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship for Works on Paper and had a Challenge Exhibit at Fleisher Art Memorial. She has also been a finalist for a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. In 2018, Baker received a Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity Grant and in 2010 she received a Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant. Baker attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) as well as the Art Students League in New York.
The Patricia M. Nugent Gallery is in the Lawrence Hall on the campus of Rosemont College, 1400 Montgomery Avenue, Rosemont, PA 19010.