Jennifer Hannaford is an artist and forensic scientist based in New York City. Jennifer began her art career with a series of mug shots created entirely with her own finger prints. She employed a pointillism technique in which the portraits are composed of fingerprint upon fingerprint; when viewed from a certain distance, the prints merge for the viewer, creating the overall image. (She cites artist Chuck Close, among others, as inspiration for the series.) Jennifer's mugshot series presents a selection of individuals whose entanglement with the law raise issues of conscience, artistic freedom and the obsession with celebrity.

 

Jennifer has recently expanded her subject matter and style to include oil paintings of underwater scenes. As a forensic scientist, Jennifer has experienced some of the harsher realities of human nature.  Her under water series allows her to explore beautiful moments of the living experience frozen in time on canvas; life, ascension, and balance. Using sensibilities that were born out of her professional training in forensic science, her understanding of how the body feels and reacts underwater, draws the viewer in and allows them to feel the moment captured.

 

Jennifer continues to work in forensic science, and is currently working to authenticate art works by artists by the latent fingerprints left behind in the imprimatura (foundational) layer of the paintings.