nonsensical and rational realities...

I am so drawn to the work of Jennifer Pettus and am so thankful to now know about it. She submitted to my past call but just did not fit into the end result of the show but I seriously look forward to working with her in the future.




She makes work that seems to me highly personal but also quite ambiguous. She blends the recognizable with the abstract in a very unique and interesting way. Treating fiber like skin at times.



The textures and combination of materiality in her work is impressive and inspiring. The scale of the works is relatively large which makes me want to see them and really investigate them even more.



She says this about her work:

My work celebrates the coexistence of nonsensical and rational realities hidden in the structure of everyday life. I believe our bodies provide us with both a personal and universal experience of the everyday. I imagine the human body as a membrane that defines a shifting surface of exchange between internal mechanics and external embellishment. By absorbing and secreting its surroundings, it is constantly improvising but never solidifying. Therefore, the body and all its disruptive and dispersive capabilities becomes a site for unraveling relationships of power interwoven through gender, language, sexuality, and etiquette. I choose materials and methods that echo this fluid improvisation, suggesting a function and a form that is never fully disclosed: stains on bed sheets become a topographical map; hair becomes text or a balloon becomes a precious gem... And by combining disparate but familiar elements, I portray the messiness of impropriety, the incoherence of compulsion, and the transience of beauty.

See more of her work including some lovely early work here.