Jeni Reeves is a figurative and landscape painter, a children’s book illustrator of 15 titles, and writer living in North Carolina. An innate interest in people and nature motivates this artist. Her peripatetic life and previous experience in a range of other disciples, influences the way she works.
A native of upstate New York, Jeni Reeves has lived in such far-flung places as Italy, London UK, Kenya and Iowa. She has spent a number of years working abroad. She studied art and sculpture in Italy and, from an early age, painted figuratively for exhibition and commission. In the visual arts, she has worked in the fields of photography, film making, television, graphic design and illustration both in the States and in England. A move to Kenya inspired her to paint landscape, culminating in the solo exhibition The Colour In Africa at the British Council in Nairobi. Since her return to the States, her work has been shown widely in a number of group and solo exhibitions, exploring a variety of themes.
Solo exhibitions of note are: The Planes of Africa the Jadite Galleries in New York City; Statements and Stories the Atrium Gallery, University of Iowa; Facing the Cradle the African American Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa; Heroic Places in 2-D Spaces the Farnham Gallery at Simpson College. Her children’s books and original illustrations featured in the interactive exhibition Painted Pages: Four Iowa Children’s Book Illustrators, in the Phelps Youth Pavilion, Waterloo Center of the Arts with Gary Kelley, Bonnie Koloc, and Chaveevah Banks Ferguson. In 2013, she collaborated with the African American Museum of Iowa on the exhibition Western Africa: Before the Boats, executing a 36-foot Rainforest and Plantation Mural as entry into to an Asante village. In 2015 her work was featured in the exhibition Drawing on History: Jeni Reeves' Illustrations for 'Voice of Freedom: A Story About Frederick Douglass at Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. She is currently writing and illustrating a children's book based on early American history.