ARTIST STATEMENT
My work honors the difficult histories of my close female relatives. Through physical and psychological acts of construction and repair—collage, print, and transfer—their personal stories materialize experiences of perseverance and resilience. I paper over, scrape away, stain, draw, and paint.
My images of women are characterized by a sense of becoming and unbecoming, often with the folds and wrinkles of my rough canvas substrate as a suggestion of order or energetic disarray altering the surface. My creative practice is grounded in perceptual drawing and incorporates chance through engagement with a collection of found or created materials which I use to construct the work.
I create painted paper, as a separate investigation of color and visual texture, and collect household or natural materials that attract me for their colors, texture, origins, and purposes. This collection becomes a lexicon of mark and hue to use for collage.
Through patching and decoupage, gestures associated with women’s labor and craft, I pursue artmaking as an act of re-envisioning and rebuilding. I strive to create images of women that express their full humanity and are beautiful on their own complicated terms.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jeanne Ciravolo is a mixed media artist whose work amplifies female narratives. The artist’s recent solo and invitational exhibitions include the Prisma Prize Exhibition in Rome, Italy; a solo exhibition “Tokens and Traces” at Buckham Gallery; and “Trio” at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art. Her work has been exhibited at Hudson Valley MOCA, the Yellowstone Art Museum, Coral Springs Museum, The New Britain Museum of American Art, and The Butler Museum of American Art. In 2020 she was awarded the Walter Feldman Fellowship, juried by Ellen Tani, Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. Her solo exhibition “Memento” at Millsaps College will take place in January of 2026. Jeanne has been awarded residencies at the Hambidge Center, Kimmel Harding Nelson, the Anderson Center, and the Jentel Foundation. Publications of her work include the Penn Journal of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania; Create Magazine #45; Manifest International Drawing Annual 15; Manifest International Painting Annual 10; and Rejoinder, a publication of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University, in partnership with the Feminist Art Project. Jeanne Ciravolo is an Assistant Professor in Residence and Director of the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at the University of Connecticut.
© Jeanne Ciravolo