Jeanine Esposito, Artist
Overall Artist Statement
My art serves for me as a language that is the only way I can express certain feelings and thoughts on a subject. The areas I explore through art have to do with emotional and psychological states that accompany critical life transformations or societal issues and conditions. I am most interested in our complex relationship with the truth – how we often search for it yet deny it when it is in front of us, and how we alternately resist and accept learning that can lead us to it, how we manipulate it for our own comfort.
Meaning, concept and context almost always precede the visual idea of a piece for me. I usually start with an emotional state or concept that I want to convey, then search for a way to communicate that feeling visually and I choose the medium that can best express it.
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•Plant-based Fiber/Paper: A favorite medium that I have dedicated years to working with is plant-based pulps and natural materials, used as sculpture material. The result of this paper-like material appears fragile and is beautifully translucent and plays with light so well, but also has incredible strength and unexpected durability. It has been the perfect metaphor for and way to explore the complexity of the human condition.
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•Mixed Media: I use video and photography to draw people intimately in to a subject to literally shift their perspective and draw them close to things they might maintain a distance from. I also use everyday objects, creating sculpture from discarded materials or curating and juxtaposing objects to make a statement. I like to call out things that are in plain sight, but not often talked about and to shift the viewers perspective on things they think they know.
