About me

Jean Marie Holdener is a local Midwest artist actively exploring story and media. Her work is best known for the abstraction of imagery in storytelling using a variety of media, even incorporating mixed media. Occasionally, her more figurative images speak to social structures and stories. Holdener’s work is influenced by Norman Rockwell and Miriam Schapiro.

 

Holdener’s artwork explores numerous mediums and formats: oil and acrylics, colored pencils and pastels, figurative characters, abstract still life, architectural monuments and spaces. Her recent paintings and mixed media projects have been examining the meaning of spaces and their intimate or awkward moments.  She enjoys playing with the media and the way in which images can narrate meaning to others.

She serves as a graphic arts professor at the University of Dubuque where she is expanding the visual arts curriculum and opportunities for her students. Outside of work she takes care of her family, two kids, husband and dog. She enjoys playing in the garden, cooking, and camping.

 

Holdener was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and started high school in North Dakota, finished high school in Georgia, finished her bachelor’s degree in design in Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, completed an MFA degree in Tennessee, and a doctoral degree in the Instructional Design for Online Learning in 2010. Holdener began teaching in the field of Graphic Arts in 1999 and has been teaching Digital Art and Design at the University of Dubuque for 23 years.

Questions, commissioning inquiries or purchases can be sent to jean.holdener@gmail.com.