Artist Statement
I make mixed media drawings utilizing pen, pencil, ink, gouache, acrylic, watercolor, spraypaint, oilstick, pastel, charcoal, coffee, tea or collage. I consider how to make a mark in order to convey the most with the least: light, dark, texture, energy, effort. Starting points can be impulsive: the radiant color of a Dorito, the eccentric pattern of a stone floor. Or they can be prompts to a memory: piano keys for childhood guilt over not practicing, a ring of keys for tearing apart my apartment searching for the set in my pocket. My drawings are a repository of memory, an unreliable diary, a tool to horde my surroundings. The crux of my process is to revise, exaggerate and recontextualize these various elements into an imagined still life that manages to evoke a kind of poetry. I want to reconfigure reality to reveal what is hidden, the cryptic omens in minutae.
Jennifer Viola, "Restless Legs," Mixed media on paper, 2023, 30 x 44 inches