Jordan Senarens
by Jonathan Yubi
It’s 2015. I arrive early to a Glenn Grishkoff lecture at
the University of Central Florida. Too early it seems.
The room is all but empty, save for Glenn in the front
preparing his brushes for the coming lecture, and Jordan. I find my way to a seat, ignoring the empty ones,
and place my bottom on the chair inches away from
Jordan Senarens. I introduce myself. She doesn’t seem
interested in making conversation, but she humors me
nonetheless. I find she has a studio space in the room
adjacent to the one we are in. I calmly continue with
the conversation, even after I discover she’s responsible
for the pieces I’ll soon come to know as the Diffracting
Series. I fall in love — not with her, mind you — but
with her work. It has an air of simple elegance, and complexities I can’t comprehend. She is, after all, a recent
transfer from the biology department.
Over the next several months I run into Jordan on campus, as I’m so prone to do anytime I want someone to
be my friend (a ceaseless campaign of ‘random encounters’). She relents, and allows an interview. I believe
she’s finally comfortable, so I confess I’ve been slaughtering the pronunciation of her last name.
that
So your father, obviously a big influence on your life.
How about your mother. Was she involved in any sort
of art?
She’s crafty. But she always supported my decision to be
an artist. I got a lot of pushback from her brother. He was
like, “I would never let my daughter be an art major.” She
said, “If she thinks she can do it, she’ll do it.” So I always
had a lot of support from everyone in my family.
That’s interesting though. I’ve always been very interested in your decision for a career change. Can you tell
us a little about that? About what you were doing before, and why you decided to move into this.
I think I decided I wanted to be an art major when I was
in middle school. So I was always set on that and then
before I really found what I wanted to do in art, I was
panicked all the time thinking I wasn’t gonna make it
work. And I think my biggest panic was my sophomore
left: detail from Destruction of Habitat, acrylic on canvas
below: Variable Space 1, acrylic on canvas
Open curtains, enter scene.
Senarens, where’s
from?
I think it’s Cuban.
of location with marker, but they were real places. This
one is imagined. The other one I did isn’t imagined, it’s
from photographs.
name
Cuban? You have Cuban descendants in your family?
Yeah.
Mother’s side, or father’s side?
Father’s.
Speaking of family, tell us a little
bit about yourself.
Well, I’m from Fort Lauderdale. My
family.... I have a very small family.
And my father moved to India, he
was a landscape architect. I think
that’s how I get a lot of my overall clarity of my landscapes. I make
each piece of foliage, as an icon.
So everything is perfect. And that’s
how I remember all of his drawings
when he was designing landscape.
So I think I’m more influenced by
him than I thought I was.
That’s cool, I didn’t know your
dad was a landscape architect.
Yeah, so I did all of these drawings
Orlando’s Art Scene
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