Pennie Fien
Pennie Fien is a mixed media/painter in Redondo Beach creating visual biographies and narratives about identity and memory, examining personal and societal presentation and image. Her BFA is from Tyler College of Art in Philadelphia and MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Following a successful career in Costume Design, she taught art for over 20 years. Since retiring in 2020, she has been exhibiting her art locally and nationally.
Selected in-person and online exhibits she’s been juried into include Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, VeruUltimum, Hera Gallery, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Betsey Lueke Creative Arts, Long Beach Creative Group, Palos Verdes Art Center, O’Hanlon Center for Arts and The Makery. She also was one of only 89 chosen out of 1200 entries for “Brand 50 Works on Paper” at Brand Library Art Center. She’s on the board of Collage Artists of America and is Exhibits Chair. Additionally, she’s a member of Southern California Women’s Caucus for the Arts.
MOTHER
Artist Statement
HAPPY CHILDHOOD: A mother & son at the shore-like Botticelli's Venus, complete with the shell and cherub. An idyllic looking scene, both so happy. She is my mother yet I never knew this joyful woman. She fascinates me. I was born to her years after this photo and somewhere along the way this woman she had been disappeared. FRAMED MID CENTURY MODERN FAIRYTALE: Collaged photos/text from 40s-60s cookbooks and architectural images. Fantasy about MCM perfect mother who loves to cook coming down from her perfect suburban castle development to go to Ol King Coles Market and discovers her perfect hybrid children ruining their dinner with late afternoon snacks. BOARD MATERNAL INSTINCTS: Two sets of mother and child deep in the ocean. One is human: an older woman with her young-middle-age daughter. The other, a whale with her young calf. Both protective, bonded to their offspring, guiding, trying to keep them safe. We are like them and they are like us. Maternal instincts run deep. CRADLEBOARD
Happy Childhood, 2022