The broken glass on the table and the sewing machine in the corner don’t explain themselves. That’s the point.

For Jennifer Cronin, art has always been about finding depth in the everyday.

Jennifer Cronin’s work went on display Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Vanderpoel Art Museum during the Beverly Art Walk. (Photo by Kelly White)

Born and raised in Oak Lawn and now living in Chicago, she studied painting and art education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Over the past two decades, her work has ranged from intimate domestic scenes to stark portraits of foreclosed homes and landscapes disappearing to climate change. Through it all, she has chased realism not as an end in itself, but as a way to get people to stop and look closer.

Cronin painted Grace in 2006, a portrait of her sister surrounded by objects that hint at a story without telling it. Nearly 20 years later, she is still painting with that same instinct—to make the ordinary mysterious, to turn the overlooked into something worth stopping for.

Her work went on display Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Vanderpoel Art Museum during the Beverly Art Walk, a neighborhood celebration of art and music organized by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance.

The exhibition, her first solo show at a museum, gathers two decades of portraits, landscapes and narrative paintings rooted in realism but open to experimentation. The show runs through Oct. 19.

“This is such a meaningful milestone for me,” Cronin said. “To have a solo show at a museum, in the neighborhood where I grew up, feels like everything has come full circle.”

Early on, Cronin found inspiration close to home.

“Early in my career, I took inspiration from my everyday domestic life,” she said. “I loved creating narrative tableaus—someone washing up in the bathroom, or whipping up something mysterious in the kitchen.”

After college, her focus widened. She drew foreclosed houses across Chicago, stark black-and-white studies of structures left behind in the housing crisis.

“I wanted to draw attention to homelessness and income inequality,” Cronin said. “The houses themselves were silent witnesses and documenting them was my way of asking people not to look away.”

Her travels took her even farther afield. She spent time in Newtok, Alaska, to paint a village threatened by climate change.

Jennifer Cronin’s Grace, Oil on canvas, 42”x 31”, 2006. (Photo by Kelly White)

“Surrounded by reminders of pain and injustice, I realized I needed my work to take on a new role,” she said. “I wanted it to provide not just reflection, but also inspiration and hope.”

That shift led to her most recent body of work, what she calls “magical landscapes.” She paints sidewalks, fences and corners of neighborhoods, reimagining them with bursts of neon, surreal color and a sense of enchantment.

“I started taking daily walks during the pandemic,” Cronin said. “It forced me to slow down, to notice the beauty hiding in plain sight. A fence, a shadow, a burst of leaves—suddenly they felt like portals into another world.”

One of her newest works, Pieces of It Everywhere, takes a mundane fence and electrifies it with pink and green auras. Leaves shimmer with neon edges as parts of the fence dissolve into cartoon-like shapes.

“It’s both otherworldly and very much of this world,” she said. “It reminds me—and I hope others—that there’s still magic in this place we call home.”

The Beverly exhibition places early works like Grace alongside these recent landscapes, showing her journey from psychological drama to social commentary to quiet wonder.

“I’ve always been interested in realism as a means to an end,” Cronin said. “Sometimes that means confronting what we’re losing, and sometimes it’s about celebrating what we have.”

Cronin is represented by Elephant Room Gallery in Chicago and will have her work featured at Aqua Art Fair during Miami Art Week in December.

“This moment feels like a launching pad,” she said. “I’m proud of where I’ve been, but I’m even more excited about what’s ahead.”

Jennifer Cronin’s work went on display Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Vanderpoel Art Museum during the Beverly Art Walk. (Photo by Kelly White)

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