Biography

Brenda Schwend is a Florida artist based in Nassau County.

She was a recipient of the Eleanor Allen Best in Show in 2019 at the FSCJ Art and Design Awards. Her work was published in the inaugural issue of Rad X magazine in 2020. She exhibited her work in two independent showings, Parallel Lives and Attachments, at Bold Bean Beaches and Stockton street locations in 2021 and 2022. She was also selected to participate in the Jacksonville Bicentennial Art Exhibition in 2022.

For 2023, she participated in The Art of Well-Being Exhibition at The Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, Florida. Her painting, Essence of Being, was awarded second place.

In 2024, she was selected to participate in the 5th LaGrange Southeast Regional Exhibition, LaGrange Art Museum, LaGrange Georgia. Also in 2024, She participated in the Express Yourself Exhibition at FSCJ Kent Campus through the Jacksonville Art Guild and won Best in Show for her painting, I Am Speaking.

In 2025, she was selected to participate in FSCJ’s alumni art exhibition, 60 at 60. She also held her first independent gallery exhibition, entitled In Her Place at the FSCJ Kent Gallery.

Her work reflects a range of subjects that include an elevated perspective on mass produced American Collectible Art glass. Additionally, an ongoing series of paintings that addresses the roles of women and the influence of mid century expectations placed upon them. Currently, she is working on a series entitled Heirlooms, blending the high and low culture of classically painted floral still life contained in vintage 1977 McDonald’s collectible glassware.

Artist Statement

I paint because I feel I am best able to express my ideas and thoughts through that medium.  From the first time my brush touched a canvas, I loved everything about it: the smell of the paint, the way it glides over a canvas, the way color behaves when it’s mixed together.  I found it to be an opening of a door, another way to communicate that had previously not been open to me.  Painting as an art form is many things.  To me, it is at its best when communicating ideas, feelings or opinions of the artist and that is exciting to me.   The current series of paintings that attempt to elevate the view of mass produced Fenton glassworks to the treasured status that they once held by those who collected them. American Collectible Art glass was known as The Poor Man’s Tiffany and was made as an affordable alternative to the luxury of Tiffany and Co. The glass paintings serve as a memorial to the booming American Manufacturing industry that was once vital throughout the Northeast. Fenton Art Glass was produced from 1905 until 2011. Additionally, there is an on going series of paintings that examine the roles of women and the influence of mid-century expectations that were placed on women. Many of those expectations still exist today.