Jenna Weiss
R.Y.G.B., 2010, 28" x 26"
Quadrant Series III, 2009, 22" x 30"
Artist Statement
My current work is a negotiation between collecting and organizing visual information. The repetition of certain shapes, being used within the order of a grid, has allowed me to create a specific pictorial language derived from a vocabulary of simple forms. While sources for these shapes come from industrial or synthetic materials such as traffic cones or bubble wrap, the removal of these material attributes from their original context is part of my exploration of both their factual and fictional qualities. When operating in this binary, the shapes become the space of their making.
In addition my work relies heavily on the illusion of a system. By using tools such as stencils or collage to create the images, a concern for the tension between absence and presence is further explored. For me, a shape is both positive and negative, equally made by the space around it as by the pressure within. It is the search for this state of equilibrium between space and object, or what Alfred Jensen described as "numerical and prismatic concerns" that I believe my paintings strive for.