Jenniffer Omaitz (b.1979)
The Tipping Point, 2022
Materials: acrylic on canvas on stretcher, 21.75" x 32.75"
Location: Arch Street Entrance to Akron City Hospital, Green Neighborhood, across North elevator
About the Art
Created in 2022, The Tipping Point serves as a reflection on reconciliation and personal growth. Inspired by a Tears for Fears concert, this piece embodies the power of music and shared experiences to foster healing. During the concert, the artist reunited with a long-lost friend, reconnecting after 12 years of separation and past conflict. What had once been a fractured relationship found resolution in this uplifting environment, where the energy of the music and the moment itself became a catalyst for forgiveness.
The concert became a transformative space—one that allowed old wounds to heal, differences to be set aside, and a renewed sense of connection to emerge. The Tipping Point represents not only the artist’s personal journey but also a universal reminder of the power of letting go, embracing closure, and moving forward with a sense of peace.
Prominently featuring shades of green, this piece harmonizes with the Wayfinding Green Hallway, reinforcing themes of renewal, growth, and emotional healing. The composition also integrates bold geometric shapes, symbolizing structure and balance. These forms create a dynamic interplay between order and emotion, reflecting the tension and resolution that come with personal transformation. The geometric elements further enhance the artwork’s message, visually representing the complexity of relationships and the beauty of reconciliation.
About the Artist
Jenniffer Omaitz’s work explores the ever-changing nature of our urban and geographic environments, examining the interplay between order and chaos in response to environmental shifts. Working in both painting and installation, she employs abstraction to navigate the intersections of technology, architecture, and nature. Through dynamic compositions, her work reflects the tension between structure and unpredictability, capturing movement, transformation, and the evolving nature of space.
Her paintings are a meditation on color, gesture, and spatial permutation, where layers of paint reveal a delicate unraveling of process and documentation. These works embody both the expressive and architectonic, fusing gestural marks with structural elements to create a visual language that is at once bold, poetic, and contemplative. Informed by influences from drawing, 20th-century painting, and architectural design, her practice investigates the ways in which gesture and form encapsulate time, psyche, and conceptual state changes.
Through her work, Omaitz challenges the boundaries of abstraction, exploring its potential as both incident and artifact. Whether on a two-dimensional canvas or within an immersive installation, her work engages viewers in an ongoing dialogue with space—both physical and psychological—offering a compelling reflection on the dynamic forces that shape our environment.
Where to See More of this Artists Work
Jenniffer Omaitz is a visual artist based in Kent, OH, where she lives and maintains her studio practice in both Kent and Cleveland. She holds an M.F.A. in painting from Kent State University and a B.F.A. in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2002). Her work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, SPACE Gallery in Denver, and Kent State University, as well as at Hinterland in Denver and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. Omaitz’s work has also been featured in significant group exhibitions, including the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver and the 2018 CAN Triennial in Cleveland. She was awarded a fellowship residency with Akron Soul Train in 2017 and received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council in 2019. Most recently, in 2023, she was honored with the Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize for Abstraction. In addition to her artistic practice, Omaitz is a dedicated educator, serving as a part-time faculty member at the Center for Visual Art and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University. Visit her website to learn more.
The Healing Arts at Summa Health