About the Artist

Artist Bio

Growing up on a ‘dead end’ road in the country; Northwest Ohio-native artist, Jennifer Sowders, grew up spending a lot of time studying nature and its indelible thread is noted within her painted landscapes.

A 1994 BFA graduate from the Columbus College of Art and Design, she has signature membership in: Ohio Watercolor Society and Watercolor USA Honor Society.  She holds associate membership in: Allied Artists, American Impressionist and National Oil & Acrylic Painters' Societies.

Since transitioning to acrylic landscapes in 2021, she has received an honorable mention in AcrylicWorks 9: The Best of Acrylic and continued as a finalist through 2026, earning a Third Place Award in AcrylicWorks 13. She is also an avid watercolorist, having 2 pieces in the Ohio Arts Council collection.
Other recent accomplishments have been in receiving the Ohio Watercolor Society's 2025 Silver Medal, 2nd place in the landscape division of the Artists Magazine’s 40th Annual, and Grand Prize in International Artist magazine's challenge #141 and #149 Landscapes ('24/'25, Two years in a row!)

She is currently represented by the Toledo Museum of Art’s Collector Corner, Gallery 317 (Bryan, OH) and is actively welcoming further representation and group show opportunities as well.

Jennifer opens up her Fostoria, Ohio studio and gallery space: MONgallery and Art Studio, every MONday to visitors. She coined “MON” to represent “Middle Of Nowhere” because of her rural location where she lives with husband, Gary and has 3 sons.

Statement

My love of landscape originally developed from the discipline of plein air painting.  This discipline was interrupted by Covid lockdowns, but became for me a passionate 'escape' because, for me, the immersion ‘in’ the landscape is transportive. As a former watercolorist, in my retreat to my studio during Covid, it also brought a Renaissance of sorts for me. I began to explore new things I’d never tried before, like acrylic paint with a palette knife, and I became undone. The palette knife provided a thrilling tactile immediacy, but I’ve also come to use a silicone-tipped implement and utilize string for whipping paint onto the canvas for branches. The spontaneous nature in this approach allows the painting to have some "say" in where it wants to go. Such methods act as a necessary handicap in avoiding thin application and push me into the impressionism I love. My only tolerance of a brush would be a cartridge-loaded brush for the tiniest embellishment of tree branches as an “icing”.  Now I continue with polarizing scenes that make me forget my troubles and feel “enveloped” in nature.  I try to pick places that anyone can have access to explore and identify with for a segue in joining my immersion.