Jennifer Lentfer

Jennifer Lentfer
Omaha, Nebraska, USA

STATEMENT

I create story-filled, quilt-like collages from a box of images from old magazines and junk mail that I have collected and curated for the last fifteen years, the ephemeral artifacts of my lifetime. My collages are tangible, tactile, and analog–all made from found paper. My only expense is the rubber cement that binds them. I also incorporate uncovered photographs, diaries, and administrative documents of my ancestors.

My people are the people of the Great Plains, the horizon, the 360-degree view. They are the people of four seasons and four-part harmony. We are resolute, resourceful, and stubborn descendants of German settlers to south-central Nebraska, who benefitted from the Homestead Act to occupy land stolen from the Pawnee people.

Focused on rebuilding culture, as well as honoring lineage and community, my collages envision a more just and equitable future to reimagine the “below below” of what binds us to each other and the common good. My work attempts to assure us all of grace, and create intentional opportunities for community dialogue. I believe if we can claim our own personal, devastating truths, we can take bolder action together.

BIO

Jennifer Lentfer is a collagist and poet living in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A. Lentfer’s analog collages wrestle with, and at the same time, preserve her ancestors’ humanity, while constructing the world she wants to see emerge from reckoning with settler colonialism. Emerging as an artist from a 20+ year career in international aid and philanthropy, her work has appeared in juried exhibitions in Burbank, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., Paris, and Sanquhar, Scotland.

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IMAGES