Bio : The Development Gallery

Jennifer Elster is a native New Yorker, critical thinker, artist, writer, director, filmmaker, photographer, musician, and performer who offers a deep and direct awareness of the human condition and our current world crises. Elster grew up in the art scene in NYC, performing in her early youth. With street edge and sophistication, Elster approaches her art with an untrained, raw, and aggressive style all her own, often using sharp diction, visual art, and performances to convey our times and our struggles. Fueled by an upbringing stricken with poverty, danger, and complexities, she applies her instinctual problem-solving skills and innovative thinking to shed new perspectives on pressing issues, evident in her notable solo-exhibitions, including The Retrospective of an Extroverted Recluse, The Wake the F*ck Up Show, Take Heed, and QUITE A BITE. Each exhibition has interwoven various forms of media, such as photography, video, performance art, and painting, exploring the human experience and issues people don't want to face.

Beginning in childhood, her first obsessions were with writing and the workings of the mind, which led her to earn an honors degree in writing and psychology at NYU while styling cultural icons like David Bowie, Trent Reznor, and Chloe Sevigny. Elster then transitioned into filmmaking, where her written and directorial feature film work debuted at Village East, played on Sundance Channel and Netflix, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and garnered recognition and awards. Her next filmmaking project, ...In the Woods (and Elsewhere), features such compelling subjects as Questlove, Alan Cumming, and Karen Black, with vocalizations performed by Yoko Ono. The production has spanned over two decades and The Development Gallery will soon reveal never-before-seen work from the project. The precursor, her online audio-visual excursion, ItW Pathway, featuring Will Shortz, Terrence Howard, Temple Grandin and the late Glenn O’Brien, was considered an innovation to online experiences.

Elster’s work has been featured in publications such as The Art Newspaper, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine, as well as at venues such as The Development, the New Museum, and Grand Central Station. She has performed her original music at several NYC venues when she felt compelled to emote.

Elster is the founder of The Development, a gallery, film, and art studio in New York City.