Jennifer Hannaford

Jennifer Hannaford was a forensic scientist for twenty-five years, and is now a contemporary artist based in New York. Her underwater series demonstrates a fantastically refreshing new talent – marrying superb technical drawing and painting skills, with her profound understanding of the human form.

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In an effort to get in touch with her innate artistic side, Jennifer began her art career with a series of mug shots created entirely with her own finger prints. She recently expanded her subject matter and style to include the underwater series.

As a forensic scientist, Hannaford experienced some of the harsher realities of human nature. Her art 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, she understands how the body feels and reacts underwater. When we look at her representational work – we can easily relate it to our own life experiences.

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Born in Placerville, California in 1968, Jennifer Hannaford received a Bachelor of Forensic Science from California State University of Sacramento in 1994, and a Masters in Biomedical Forensic Science from Boston University in 2013. As a result of her studies, Jennifer understood that recovered latent fingerprints could potentially be used for the purpose of art authentication. Fascinated by this combination of art and science, her thesis focused on the recovery of fingerprint detail from the imprimatura (foundational) layer in paintings.