ARTIST STATEMENT
My work endeavors to blur the distinction between hand and machine. My recent work exploring pressing irons is a nod to the early 20th Century Dada movement engaged with machinery and readymades. As an artist, I continue building on this tradition to bring it into the digital era of the 21st Century as our relationship with technology continues. The forms I explore are inspired by vintage domestic utilitarian machines I have collected, as well as related trade catalogues, advertisements, blueprints, and patent drawings. Digital manipulations derived from these source materials lay a foundation that launches their evolution. The drawing medium allows for both transparency and mutability between layers of information. The mechanical forms within these compositions are simultaneously transformed casting off their intended function and asserting an animated physical presence and internal narrative that allows me to explore a multitude of dualities: male vs female, hand vs machine, organic vs mechanical, playful vs menacing, analog vs digital, and functional vs dysfunctional.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jessica Gondek is and artist and teacher living in the Chicago area. She received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Loyola University Chicago where she teaches drawing and painting in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. Ms. Gondek has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing her work notable a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist grant, a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grant, and a Mid-America Arts Alliance National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has been and artist in residence at the Can Serrat International Art Center in Spain, and The Frans Masereel Center in Belgium. Ms. Gondek exhibits her work nationally and internationally and is a member of ARC Gallery and Educational Foundation and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.
© Jessica Gondek