ArtPrize 2025: Jennifer Burgnon’s ‘The Natives’

25 Sept. 2025

By Justin Tiemeyer

Contributing Writer

Jennifer Burgnon’s acrylic mixed media painting “The Natives” is on display, on the third floor of The B.O.B., at 20 Monroe Avenue NW. This painting is Burgnon’s “love letter to Michigan’s rich biodiversity,” and the natives in question are the state’s indigenous flora. With thick acrylic flowers nearly wrestling free from the painting and out into the wild, it feels like Burgnon must have spent her whole life painting, but, in truth, she has not. “Art came much later in life for me,” Burgnon said.

About 15 years ago, Burgnon was at a career crossroads, and amid the difficulties, a friend of hers bought some canvases, and the two set out to paint together. “It was amazing and cathartic,” Burgnon said, “and I stuck with it. Art started as an escape, but my art, itself, has taken different paths. This past year, it started to evolve again.”

In just one year, the world changed, Burgnon herself changed, and so did her artistic voice. To put too fine of a point on exactly how she changed would betray the artist herself, but there is reason to believe that “The Natives” is a good starting point for an inquiry.

Just as the layers of acrylic paint stretch out toward the viewer, there are layers to Burgnon’s painting. The first layer is the indigenous flora mentioned earlier, the tree and plant life that makes living in Michigan unique from living in any other state. The second layer is the threat, the beautiful, fast-growing plants, invasive species that dominate habitats and poison or choke out the competition.

For those of you who think, “this is just a landscape,” you are wrong, because this landscape is constantly shifting. The first warning of such is a sign on the ground that reads, “Wet paint,” and you think, “Wet paint? But this piece has been hung here for at least a week, right?” The next involves a line from Burgnon’s artist statement: “Watch the creative landscape of ‘The Natives’ evolve as I paint live throughout the event.”

In other words, the painting you view on opening night of ArtPrize is not the same painting as the one on display during closing weekend. Just how insidious and damaging Burgnon wishes to depict these invasive species, nobody knows just yet, but the idea itself begs for a repeat viewing.

Many painters stick to their studio, but for Burgnon, her best work comes from getting into the weeds. “I am very heavily impacted by my surroundings,” Burgnon said. “That’s why I like to do a lot of on-scene paintings.

The chaos of changing temperatures, winds, bugs, leaves, and weather is a welcome respite for Burgnon from the chaos of remembering that email you forgot to send or planning for an event in two weeks. Painting started as a way to make peace in Burgnon’s life, and painting outdoors, with all of its mess, even moreso. It reminds you of the old trope, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.”

“Sometimes you get a really bad day,” Burgnon said. “You might have a really great painting that you really love, and you come home, and you scrape it all off. Whatever just happened, that piece was not going to be my masterpiece anyways.”

On the other hand, sometimes the chaos adds to the painting. With how thick Burgnon lays on the acrylic paint, when she is rained on while outdoors, raindrops might sink a half inch into the paint, creating pockmarks. Burgnon described an instance where exactly this happened, and instead of failure she saw inspiration. “It looked really cool,” Burgnon said. “It was a whole new surface to work with. This actually made it better.”

Burgnon is able to stack her acrylic paint as high off the canvas as she does because she mixes heavy texture mediums into her paint. “It’s tactile, almost sculptural in nature,” Burgnon said. “They’re just begging to be touched. The paint is almost 3D.”

As mentioned before, Burgnon did not have an art background before her friend bought those canvases. She has made her way to ArtPrize her own way, by watching YouTube videos and experimenting. Some people make fine art in order to challenge the accepted definitions of fine art and really take it to the academy. For Burgnon, the academy is far away, and its shadow cannot be seen, so if she wants to build high with her paints, she builds high. “Art is what we say it is,” Burgnon said. “Art is what anyone says of it.”

Jennifer Burgnon’s ever-growing, ever-evolving acrylic mixed media painting “The Natives” is on display on the third floor of The B.O.B., at 20 Monroe Avenue NW (Vote ID 53475). Others of Burgnon’s paintings can be seen at Flat River Gallery & Framing in Lowell or at Blue House Art Square in Ada. For those looking to follow Burgnon’s work past ArtPrize, check her out on Facebook and Instagram at @originalartsbyjenniferburgnon.