We’re excited to partner with The Compass Atelier on a program that allows Master Artist Program students to showcase their paintings inside Signal Financial’s flagship branch at City Center, located in the heart of Washington, DC. Each month, the City Center branch morphs into a revolving art exhibit, giving the students a platform to display their visual artwork and be recognized among the community. A new artist is highlighted each month, with an opening reception on the first Thursday of every month. Come by and enjoy music, light refreshments and complimentary beverages as we acknowledge and celebrate the artists of our very own community. Check back monthly to see which artist we’ll be featuring next.

March art exhibit featuring Jennifer Rutherford

For our most recent exhibit, Signal was proud to showcase the lively and vibrant artwork of Jennifer Rutherford. 

A celebratory reception of Rutherford’s work was held on the first Thursday in March. You can see highlights of the event on Signal Financial’s Facebook page.

Meet the Artist

Jennifer Rutherford M. Music, Master Artist,Portraits and Oils

Jennifer Rutherford’s first career was singing. A Montgomery County resident since 1989, she began to study art at The Art League of Alexandria in 2000. Influenced by her love of impressionist Singer Sargent, Rutherford has pursued a love of portraits, winning several first place and best in show prizes in art competitions. She has been accepting commissions since 2004 and, in 2006, produced a double portrait for Community Bible Study’s Colorado headquarters.

Jennifer also gives back to the community. Her “Pumpkin Pie with Strawberries I and II” palette knife paintings twice raised money, once as a cookbook cover benefiting at-risk youth in 2013. Rutherford and a fellow artist also co-founded AGAP, a Monday night inner city arts program in 2000. There she taught singing and art in Anacostia for more than 11 years. AGAP is now in its 19th year of operation!

Her paintings hang internationally from Sydney, Australia; Vancouver and Edmonton in her native Canada; and in Colorado Springs, Colo., Potomac, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Chevy Chase and Bethesda, Md., and Leesburg, Va..

Jennifer made her solo gallery debut at the Great Hall Gallery at the National United Methodist Church in Washington, DC in April 2014. A resident since the former Capital Arts Network/Washington Artworks became Artists and Makers – now the largest art space in Montgomery County, Md., she is a 2018 graduate of Glen Kessler’s 3-year Compass Atelier Master Artist program, and was a member of the late New Masters Art Gallery in Rockville, Md. In December of 2017 a small works show featured at Retrouvé Home Gallery in Gaithersburg, Md. exhibited her opera themed portraits.

Jennifer looks forward to blending her love of music and opera into her future narrative work. She enjoys painting the local scenery in and around Highfield acreage, which she and her husband Richard Rutherford share with their three beautiful sight hounds. Her miniature animal portraits are featured at The Family Room gathering place in Laytonsville, Md. where her illustrations can be found in “Tadcaster and the Bullies”, a children’s book for ages 7-10 written by her husband. Together, Rutherford and her husband have participated in several book signings and school presentations in 2019.

Artist Statement
“For as long as I can remember I have sung and I have acted. It was my chosen vocation over many years even to the present. Opera was my medium ­— an artistic vehicle capable of transporting an audience to another place and era through classical sound and visual effect.

Now, as a painter I am intrigued to give insight into both the opera character’s guise and the singer’s genuine face, surreptitiously peering behind the mask. For my opera series I used photographs of my subjects posed in evocative lighting. My aim was to capture a single, fleeting moment of commonality, as the actor occupies the part in period costume. What emotion can be glimpsed through the analysis of a characterful expression? What enigmatic puzzle lives side-by-side in the sitter’s reality and the character’s story? What is more real, the person or the persona? What is imparted is a subtle, emotional undertone common to both the fictional narrative and the actor. Through the juxtaposition of humanity, role, and paint on canvas, I celebrate these two subjects’ intertwined existence.” — Jennifer Rutherford