Jennifer Anne Bennett grew up in Lemon Grove, California. She earned an AA in Cross-Cultural-Studies from Grossmont College, a BA in Painting and Printmaking from San Diego State University, and an MFA in Painting from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She enjoys learning about and from her students at Grossmont College, where she has been a Professor of Art since 2006. Jennifer is a painter, native plant gardener, cat mama, enjoys pilates, and serves on her community council.
Bennett’s paintings are united by light, atmosphere, creating a space to enter, daydream, or encounter the unexpected. They are ambiguous landscapes where the viewer may bring a history, narrative, or memory to the works. There is an instinctive sense of place: ground and sky, forest and clouds, branches and boulders, all symbols rendered in poetic and quiet perception.
We yearn to experience the sublime, a personal connection to nature, and to find solace in its grounding presence. Traveling to it, hiking through it, or sleeping under it, there is something primal in our hunger for communion with the natural world: towering trees in a dense forest, wildflowers in the countryside, a cliff face illuminated by the rising sun, forever seeking the infinite beauty of the wilderness surrounding us.
CV
b. Honolulu, HI. Lives in San Diego, CA
Education
2001 MFA Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy
1998 BA San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Select Exhibition Record
2026
September 19 - October 15, Echoes in Nature: Jennifer Anne Bennett, RB Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla
August 29 - September 26, The Giving Tree, Space 4 Art @ Art Produce Gallery, San Diego
Changing Terrain: Regional Artists Interpret Our Landscape, Oceanside Museum of Art
Art Exhibition and Auction, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
2025
Holiday group show, R.B. Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla
Traces of Place: Jennifer Anne Bennett, RB Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla
Spring: the group show, R.B. Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla
Best Practice Auction Fundraiser, Best Practice, San Diego
Into the Woods: Resplendent, Paintings by Jennifer Anne Bennett & Jeanne Dunn, San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery
Fig 15, Art Produce Gallery, San Diego
Jennifer Anne Bennett: The Forests of La Sarthe, Sip Art Space, San Marcos
Dear LA, Love SD, Good Good Things @ Quint Gallery, La Jolla
2024
Grossmont Open, Indiana Woods I & II, Hyde Art Gallery
2023
Boundaries Edge, Techne Art Center, Oceanside
The Last Group Show, Bread and Salt, San Diego
2022
A Map Project, 60 Artists 60 Maps, City Gallery, San Diego City College
2021
Best Practice Auction Fundraiser, Best Practice, San Diego
2020
Campus Creatives: From the Classroom to the Museum, California Center for the Arts, Escondido
2019
C-Note, Auction, San Diego Art Institute
2018
You Are Here, San Diego Central Library
Campus Creatives: From the Classroom to the Museum, California Center for the Arts, Escondido
Feminism Now, Shoebox Gallery, Los Angeles and Krogen Amerika, Stockholm, Sweden
2017
Nasty Women, Helmuth Projects, San Diego
All Natural, San Diego State University Downtown Gallery
Fiesta of Prints and Bookmaking, Athenaeum Art Center, San Diego
2016
Feminism Now, Gallery D, San Diego
Art Auction and Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla
Wouldn’t it be nice… Selections from San Diego, H Gallery, Mesquite, TX
MAS Attack 11, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego
2015
Cuts and Links: Bhavna and Friends, The Rose Art Gallery, San Diego
Monotypes: Jennifer Anne Bennett, Bay Park Press, San Diego
2014
Labor Migrant Gulf 2, Uri Eichen Gallery, Chicago
Object Object!!, Helmuth Projects, San Diego
Labor Migrant Gulf, Southwestern College Art Gallery, San Diego
2013
15 Minutes of Fame, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego
Gift, Feminist Imagery Group, San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery
Altered Horizons, Art Produce Gallery, North Park, San Diego
Object Object!, Helmuth Projects, San Diego
2009
Trade Show, California – Turkey, San Diego, Los Angeles, Turkey
2007
OMA Regional 5: Oceanside Museum of Art Juried Exhibition, Oceanside
Painting, Works by Jennifer Bennett and Robin Bright, Hyde Art Gallery, Grossmont College
Bibliography
2025
Deaderick, Lisa. “Get lost in nature-based artwork ‘Into the Woods: Resplendent’ features landscape paintings by Jennifer Anne Bennett and Jeanne Dunn at Mesa College.” The San Diego Union-Tribune. 29 - 30 March 2025, Local: p. B2
Dear LA, Love SD, Good Good Things, Quint Gallery (catalog)
2017
Fiesta of Prints, Athenaeum Art Center (catalog)
2016
Feminism Now, Gallery D, San Diego, CA (catalog)
Under Pressure: printmaking today, Hyde Art Gallery, curator, (catalog)
2015
Ross, Andrew, Gulf Labor: High Culture, Hard Labor, OR Books 2015
56th Venice Biennale, The Arena Plan, Gulf Labor. “A New Wave of Arts Activism?” slide presentation on Gulf Labor West, August 5, 2015, Venice, Italy
2014
Object Object!!: A Selection of Smaller Works, Helmuth Projects (catalog)
Chute, James. “Artists and Workers Unite”. UTSanDiego.com. March 12, 2014
Perez, Andrew, Southwestern Sun, “Gatekeeper’s Children,” Feb. - April 2014
Bittar, Doris, "Bi-Cultural Settlements: Gulf Labor and Global Solidarity,” Project Muse, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Vol 42, Nos 3-4, Fall/Winter 2014, pp 253-266
2013
Object Object!: A Selection of Smaller Works, Helmuth Projects (catalog)
2010
Takas Sergisi/ Trade Show, Kultur Merkezi Mithatpasa Sanat Galerisi (catalog)
2006
Koppman, Debra. “Jennifer Bennett and Robin Bright.” Artweek. December 2006
2005
Kromer, MaryAnn, “Paintings portray possibility, potential.” Advertiser-Tribune. 30 October 2005
2001
McGilvery, Kelly. “The fragile beauty of art in war (as inspired by a garlic painting).” Dialogue. November/ December 2001, p. 80
Langston, Bonnie. “Waxing Artistic.” Daily Freeman. 13 September 2001, p. D1
“Event Briefs; Encaustic Works 2001.” Blue Stone Press. 7 September 2001
Lane, Dakota. “Ancient encaustics and modern movies; the art that remains.” Art Box, Almanac. 27 September 2001, p. 5
Encaustic Works 2001, Muroff-Kotler Arts Gallery (catalog)
1999
Pincus, Robert L. “Full Steam Ahead: Street People; Taking Art to the Public was a Major Wake-Up Call for the City.” The San Diego Union-Tribune. 16 September 1999, Night & Day: p. 34
Pincus, Robert L. “Floating Images: emblems and relics are the backdrops for two exhibitions.” The San Diego Union-Tribune. 18 May 1999, Night & Day: p. 53
Jennifer Anne Bennett is represented by R.B. Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla, California USA