Jessica Vellenga

Download my CV: .DOC format | .PDF format

Biography

I am an interdisciplinary artist, often combining eclectic materials. I am well versed in photography both digital and SLR, bookbinding, painting, life drawing, bronze casting, wire sculpture, etching, lithography, transfer printing, emboss printing, cyanotype, and woodcuts. I have focused on merging photography and printmaking. Finding a meeting point between photography and printmaking, in order to construct an effective synthesis. My recent explorations have entailed exploring sculptural practice through the use of wire and metal. My practice is grounded in my education from McMaster University as well as from the opportunity to study abroad under the department of fine art at the University of Leeds, England. I have experienced a wide variety of art exhibits, conferences, workshops, and public lectures at modern and contemporary art spaces throughout Canada and Europe.

Artist Statement

My work explores corporeal aspects of the human condition, emphasising sensory awareness, and the physical frailty of the human body. These concepts come together to highlight how presence can be revealed through absence. The body is physically absent but the work itself stands in for the corporal - for instance, an empty dress, bed or altered photograph. The body is both a container and contained by the subject, both powerful and fragile. The physical frailties of the human body, as well as the frailty of society, allow me to delve into the cyclical happenings of life and death, desire, memory and loss. The past, abandoned and neglected aspects of the natural world and synthetic society occur frequently in my work.