Frieze 91 Member Spotlight: Jenn Ellis
For the December edition of Frieze 91 Member Spotlight, we feature Jenn Ellis FRSA, Frieze 91 committee member, curator and founder from Switzerland, Colombia and the UK based in London following five years in Hong Kong. Passionate about the considered meeting of art, space and context, she has created over the last decade meaningful projects and connections between artists, galleries and institutions globally. As the founder of curatorial studio Apsara, Ellis has curated, led and conceived solo projects from Frieze 9 Cork Street to the UNESCO heritage sites in Burgundy, France. Jenn is equally the co-founder of acclaimed virtual platform AORA, which combines art, architecture and music to instil a sense of calm and wellbeing.
Jenn Ellis. © Bart Pajak
1. Describe yourself in three words?
Positive, dedicated, kind
2. What’s your proudest moment?
Recently, it’s opening a physical space for our curatorial studio, Apsara, which I formalised and launched in August 2021. It marked 3 years of us working from my dining table and 7 years for me of working from home. An incredible next step to have a place to go to where we can make, create, collaborate and share.
3. Art icon?
An unconventional answer perhaps, but my late Colombian grandmother, Angela Martinez Rengifo, aka Ama. She played the piano everyday for three hours and was an incredibly skilled painter. Growing up, she was the person who showed me how to be in love not just with art, but creating and making.
4. Hidden gem in your city?
I’m obsessed with the Gabriel Orozco garden in South London Gallery; how it takes different forms throughout the year because of the different plants and its ongoing collaboration with Kew Gardens. I love this melding of public space, temporality, the natural world, architecture and the artist’s hand.
5. Favourite restaurant?
Anywhere in the world? Yardbird in HK - my old home - for the vibes; Chez Lipp in Geneva - where I grew up - for its timelessness; La Poule au Pot in London - where we currently live - as we’ve celebrated many a special moment there.
6. Song you can listen to on repeat?
Oh dear, I have an incredible habit of doing this and then ‘killing’ a song. Embarrassingly or not, I've consistently been told by Spotify I’m in the top 3% of The Killers listeners globally.
7. Exhibition you’re excited to see (or have seen)?
I adored seeing the recent exhibition at Rajan Bijlani’s home. It’s everything I adore: artistic global dialogue, sensitively curated in a space - here his private home, thoughtfully blending architecture, design and art. I loved that project.
8. A skill you’re working on mastering?
Being better at setting boundaries and conditions. This could range from staying true to my vision as a curator over to being firm in the way people collaborate and work with us at the studio. I think it’s part of growing, too. Evolving out of a ‘thank you for picking us, we’ll do it’ phase over to ‘does this fit, and are we aligned?’ moment
9. A memorable place?
I grew up going to Miami every Christmas as a kid because it was where my grandmother lived. We didn’t go to Art Basel or anything like that. Rather, it was about the Fairchild Tropical Gardens, having Colombian empanadas, going to the Everglades. I will treasure those core memories forever.
10. Favourite museum?
I would have to say Naoshima in Japan. It’s incredible: I would love to go back. The way the art and architecture sings with the landscape - it’s again, everything I love. A thoughtful and resonant play between art, space and context.
11. Artist you’re currently thinking about?
Constantly thinking about many!
At the forefront of my mind at the moment is Mark Jackson, a London-based painter who I included in a group show earlier this year - ‘On tenderness and time’ - presented by Xenia. About a year ago I introduced him to a collector friend and supporter of mine, and out of this a year-long collaboration sprung where he’s created three new paintings, letting each evolve steadily and in tandem. They’re sensational and the paintings feel as if they’re siblings. I’m excited to show them together in the studio in December-January 2025 before they go onto other places and homes!
Otherwise, I’m also excited for my project with Venezuelan London-based artist Lucia Pizzani at Frieze Los Angeles in February! The last of four chapters as part of my curatorial role with Frieze x Breguet, which explores evolutionary change. We are showing an evolved series of ceramics works as well as some incredible works on paper, which collectively speak to plant migration, mark-making, and ancestral methods of creating.
