Jennifer Torres was born in Queens, NY and spent her childhood in Teaneck, NJ. She did her first four years of studio training as a teenager at the Art Students League in New York City and then earned her BFA at the Cooper Union, also in NYC. Her focus was steel fabrication, casting, woodworking and photography. After graduating from Cooper she trained as a fine cabinetmaker in New England, learning important skills that she still utilizes today. After traveling around the United States for a few years including working at lumber mill in Oregon she moved back east to get her MFA in Sculpture at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Ms. Torres has lived in Hattiesburg, MS for 21 years where she has her studio and teaches sculpture as a tenured professor at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS. She has had many exhibits of her sculptures and installations around the country and has won a number of awards and commissions. Ms. Torres received a highly competitive 2020 MS Visual Arts Fellowship and was chosen as Creative Researcher of the Year at USM’s College of Arts and Letters. Currently she is working on a big commission of new Garden Boats similar to those currently in Art Garden at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson.