Jessica Jackson Hutchins

Jessica Jackson Hutchins

March 18 - April 17, 2004

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 18, 6 - 8 pm

Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present works in and on paper by Jessica Jackson Hutchins.

Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ monumental papier maché works are evocative of natural forms such as mountains and waves. Derived from her ongoing investigation of landscape emblems, the sculptures are fashioned out of a sea of pasted-together bits of paper and covered with layers of ink and enamel paint. Her mystical ridge-like masses are punctuated with inlaid pearls, lapis lazuli, and pyrites, and beckon viewers to navigate their surface.

In collage-based drawings, Hutchins uses paste, glitter, scissors, ink, and inanity as tools. She describes her use of collage as “a way of thinking of things as they already exist, a way of addressing the futility of representing something so already there, and making use of the tides of metaphors swirling around in the daily trash.” In these works, stars cut from newspapers delineate paths, and pictures of isolated mountains and moss cut from tourist manuals reflect the nebulous quality of land forms when displaced from their environment. “Mountains are eternal and bare the weight of too much metaphor, they’re epic. When you cut out pictures of them, they become just a dumb lump like you.”

The exhibition will also feature a figure of Darth Vader made around an empty cd rack. 

This will be her first solo show in New York. 

Jessica Jackson Hutchins received the East Award at Norwich East International Exhibition in 2002 (Norwich, England), and has shown her work at several venues in New York City, as well as the Hermetic Gallery in Milwaukee, Midway Contemporary in Minneapolis, and the Living Arts Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.