Jennifer Mercede describes her work as “street art meets toddler art meets fine art,” and she means all three. She paints fast and loose in acrylic, markers and crayons, chasing a flow state, with bright color knocked against dark muted tones, lots of circles and words tucked into the paint.
I love to encourage people to free up, have fun and play in their art (and life).
She started out selling paintings on the sidewalk at Alberta Street's Last Thursday, then landed in the shops and galleries along the same street. OPB's Oregon Art Beat profiled her in 2010. Her murals include a KEEN kids' wall in Portland, a children's museum mural in Grand Rapids for ArtPrize, a permanent school mural painted with more than 280 students, and a creative wing at an international school in Hong Kong.
She teaches as much as she paints, online and in workshops from Austin to Denver to Hong Kong.
At Hopscotch her wall is cream and crowded with loose contour-line figures: faces in sunglasses and headscarves, bead necklaces, color slabs and crayon scribbles. Walls Within, curated with Portland Street Art Alliance, at Hopscotch Portland.
