about
artist statement
I am a Los Angeles–based artist working across film, music, and multimedia performance. Through immersive, time-based works, I help audiences encounter experiences that are easy to overlook, difficult to comprehend, or painful to confront. My projects explore subjects such as planetary time, environmental responsibility, grief, and the invisible habits of everyday life. Rather than presenting information or telling narratives directly, I create durational structures that allow meaning to emerge through experience.
I am drawn to simple processes that produce complex experiences—whether condensing 24 hours of changing light into a single frame to make planetary time perceptible, or projecting a moonrise larger than life to transform a familiar celestial event into an experience of wonder. Across my work, simple processes and recognizable materials serve as entry points into experiences that are layered, open-ended, and deeply personal.
At the core of my practice, I believe that reality is easier to act upon, live with, grieve, enjoy, or integrate when we can see it clearly. I create work that invites audiences to discover meaning for themselves, trusting viewers to sit with uncertainty, make connections, and arrive at their own understanding. My goal is not to provide answers, but to create experiences that help people encounter the realities of their lives more fully.
"Bewerse draws from her instrument every possible sound short of a human voice... [she] pushes the envelope, vaulting
and diving up and
down the
registers of the
cello"
Raul da Gama,
"The visual imagery was akin to a Wilsonian landscape, where time seemed to stand still, requiring viewers to settle back and not check cell phones,
but go into
contemplative
mode."
Victoria Looseleaf,
"...with fine, strong control. I became emotional paying such close attention to the textural topography of this most basic, most beautiful
experience —
the open string
of a cello and
the moon."
Tazmin Elliot,
biography
Jennifer Bewerse is a multimedia artist and award-winning cellist described as “[drawing] from her instrument every possible sound short of a human voice” (WholeNote). She creates time-based works across film, music, and performance that reconnect people with experiences so familiar they often go unnoticed, inviting a more expansive way of seeing their lives and the world around them.
Her films, compositions, and multimedia works have been presented at cultural centers and institutions including REDCAT, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), CAP UCLA, the NC State University Library, and the Gamble House (Pasadena); at contemporary arts spaces and galleries including the Fridman Gallery (New York), 2220 Arts & Archives, Human Resources, ArtShare LA, and the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden; and across experimental series, salons, and festivals including the Hear Now Festival, the Dog Star Festival, the Society for Women in Philosophy: Spring Salon, Tape Tail Series, Tuesdays at MonkSpace, the Fivesparks Harvard Music Festival, and the Experiments in Electronic Sound Festival. Her creative work has been commissioned by the NC State University Library, Synchromy, Brightwork New Music, BoCoCelli, and Aperture Duo, alongside collaboratively developed projects commissioned by REDCAT. Her short film Unstuckness Practice, co-directed with Sharon Chohi Kim, received Honorable Mention from Experimental Forum Los Angeles and LA Underground Film Forum, and her film and performance collaboration Luna was named one of San Francisco Classical Voice’s Best Classical Performances of 2024.
Her research and artistic practice have been supported by the Automata Theater Artist's Residency, the Oracle Egg BROILER Residency, the Los Angeles Performance Practice Research & Development Residency, and the Human Resources Los Angeles Artist Residency. Additionally, she has been a Fellow-in-Residence at the Women’s International Study Center, Composer-in-Residence for the Music from Salem Cello Seminar, and an artist-in-residence at Westben (Canada) and the Archie Bray Institute for the Ceramic Arts. Her original works and community initiatives have been funded by the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), New Music USA, the Montana Arts Council, the Earle Brown Music Foundation, and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA).
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As a specialist in contemporary cello technique, she has premiered over 150 works and performed as a guest soloist for the wasteLAnd Concert Series, Tuesdays at MonkSpace, Synchromy’s Urban Birds, the Robert Helps International Composition Competition, and the Without Walls Festival at the La Jolla Playhouse. Her performance footprint includes concerts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Greek Theatre, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Wende Museum, and the Banff Centre; and featured performances for contemporary series and spaces including Monday Evening Concerts, 2220 Arts & Archives, Hauser & Wirth, and the Center for New Music. She is the Cello Performance Faculty for the Impulse New Music Festival, has served as a guest Teaching Artist for the Music from Salem Cello Seminar, and as a guest lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, The Colburn School, the Iceland Academy of the Arts, the Boston Conservatory, and the University of South Florida.
Additionally, she has been a featured performer and presenter for the CSUF Interarts Symposium, the Festival of New American Music, the New Music Gathering, and the Eureka! Musical Minds Conference. Her performance and media works can be seen and heard via Ugly Duckling Presse, Emergency Index, Navona Records, Blue Griffin Recording, Infrequent Seams, Semayd Records, and Naxos.
A versatile and sought-after collaborator, her practice spans longtime duos, avant-garde collectives, and large-scale contemporary projects. Her duo with Rachel Beetz, Autoduplicity, explores performance beyond traditional sound-making for highly trained instrumentalists. Supported by a UC San Diego Dean of Humanities Project Grant, the duo has premiered works by Todd Moellenberg, Carolyn Chen, Isaac Schankler, and Celeste Oram, appearing at platforms including Omaha Under the Radar, the Dog Star Theater Festival, wasteLAnd, and Mengi (Reykjavik). Her historic collaborations include serving as the cellist for the Koan Quartet, Boston Public Quartet, and the Southland Ensemble—an experimental group awarded by the Amphion Foundation and Aaron Copland Fund and praised by the Los Angeles Times as “entrancing”—as well as her extensive work in Diagenesis Duo with vocalist Heather Barnes, whose debut album, Hands and Lips of Wind, was celebrated by Sequenza 21 as “a radiant combination... brilliantly realized and masterfully recorded.” Currently, she is the cellist in the Modern Currents Ensemble, who recently performed alongside experimental icons Fred Frith and Joan La Barbara. As a guest performer, she has performed with The Industry, wild Up, the Wordless Music Orchestra, the Calithumpian Consort, Ghost Ensemble, Aperture Duo, Four Corners Ensemble, the Experimental Music Yearbook, now hear Ensemble, Juventas, Brightwork Ensemble, Bent Frequency Duo, and Ellen Fullman.
Jennifer is also the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Middle Ear Project, an artist-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to presenting, commissioning, and supporting artists working within experimental, hard-to-define genres. Through Middle Ear Project, she and Cassia Streb have launched programs such as Music for Your Inbox—an innovative hybrid subscription platform that mails original visual art pieces paired with on-demand digital sound films to households across the country—and the Library Arts Program, providing free experimental art to communities through library branches across LA County. Middle Ear Project's work has received institutional backing from the Eastside Arts Initiative, the Puffin Foundation, the LA Area Chamber of Commerce's Bixel Exchange Program, The M Therese Southgate MD Charitable Trust for Medicine and the Visual Arts, and the Pasadena Art Alliance.
A native of Florida, Jennifer received her Bachelor of Music magna cum laude from the University of South Florida, her Master of Music from The Boston Conservatory, and her Doctorate in Contemporary Performance at the University of California, San Diego with a full scholarship.
