There are certain attributes in an artist’s work that stands out. A poignant unspoken language in which you may not be fluent but you can detect due to a sincerity that renders that work universal. Jacquelynn Perkins is an artist who finds strength in vulnerability. Her aforementioned language is one of honesty, transparency and true beauty. Perkins’ work is so candid and open in its subject matter that her work possibly comes off as confrontational to those who aren’t familiar with its constructs. She isn’t trying to jar into an epiphany. It is more than humdrum shock at stake.
Perkins’ intentions are admirable and quite liberating. Through her work, she is redefining not only what is to be a woman but fine tuning the definition of humanity and what it means to be human. From the roota to the toota. There are various aspects of our existence that make us whole: pain, love, patterns and chaos. Perkins embodies it all. Her pieces are bold, unapologetic and even unsettling at times–yet not without grace and skill. Not that her tone can be in any way policed.
Perkins is rebellious at heart. She outrightly thumbs her nose at the preconceived notions of femininity. Perkins’ tactics are covert and dangerous. Through her pattern making, Perkins stages clever coups against an oppressive regime of unwarranted standards and unrealistic expectations. Making the work is therapeutic through and through. She uses it to quell her own oppressive thoughts. The process of hand cutting is a cathartic one where she pieces together a new refined paradigm that is grounded in reality just as much as it is grounded in a causal divinity. Having suffered from an array of afflictions, Perkins knows exactly what it takes to survive mortality.
Akeem K. Duncan: Your work is a thoughtful frenzy of patterns. Tell us about your relationship with pattern making?
Jacquelynn Perkins: “I am grounded by the act of repetition in pattern making and deeply inspired from patterns in nature. I have come to find pattern making is an act of self soothing and regulation for me. When I am focused on my visual patterns, the unhealthy mental patterns of rumination subside. I worked in collage mixed media for years and part of my current process is a remnant of this history. I scan my graphite drawings and designs to digitally manipulate them into patterns. Then I print paper stencils from the digital sketches. . The cutting of shapes with my favorite 20 year old cheap hair cutting shears is drawing with scissors for me, and I am attached to this act. Painting around stencils, taping down tracing paper, drawing, and rearranging allows for new channels of energy to be flowing, until they are finally captured in paint. I generate patterns with combinations of familiar things that are often viewed as peculiar or taboo, for example: tampons, dissected snakes, the clitoris. I highlight or disguise the objects depending on what message or emotion I want to convey and sometimes it comes down to the aesthetic composition of the painting.”
AKD: What role do the patterns play in your work?
JP: “Pattern can act as a container for the vivid, saturated color combinations I adore and the randomness of my mind that I like to harness. I utilize pattern to bring order and balance to my expressive strokes. The challenge of completing what I started to make a visual eye trap of delight for the viewer is fun and mesmerizing. Patterns represent the universal connection we all have with other humans, animals, plants and the universe. I like to extend this connection to inanimate objects too. We are all connected more than we generally acknowledge. We all are made of patterns and in nature surrounded by them.”
AKD: Do you feel like your pieces are draped in a certain honesty?
JP: “Definitley, sometimes painfully so at first, yet once my insecurities and rumination are on the canvas, they are free and I am invigorated. My recent works are meant to show the bodies of women, not as sexualized objects, as humans in charge of their own body, self, age, power, and sexuality. Personally, I know many female contemporaries view their own body as an obstacle instead of a vessel to honor. As adults many of us, if not most, are faced with learning how to love one’s own body, since it was often lost in childhood with society’s expectations. Or maybe it was lost after the changes of pregnancy and childbirth, or aging. I have experienced disassociation with my body for much of my life. Bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, fourth degree tears during natural childbirth, and recently a myriad of chronic health conditions fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. I mention these conditions to raise awareness for these invisible inflictions affecting millions, mostly women. Painting myself has generated a close connection and personal admiration with my body since the act of painting allows me to view myself more objectively, it often has the same effect for the women I paint, and I hope a residual effect for the viewer. If you love your own body more, you love others’ bodies more too.”
AKD: What parts of you come through in your paintings?
JP: “Making art is my primary mode of expression. With years of painting and drawing I am in an exciting place of feeling my own visual language. I experience much grief over the havoc humans have forced on the animal and plant species of our Earth. I paint flora and fauna native to my native Colorado to honor them, those poor little Colorado prairie dogs! I am a bold woman striving to connect to myself and my ever changing body, brain and mind, hoping to inspire others to do the same. For years I didn’t embrace the hot color of pink, trying to blend in with a stereotypical male dominated scene. Now, pink runs wild in my whimsical odd designs, seeping with a contemporary nostalgia. The bright colors and patterns are reminiscent of picture books and time studying Illustration at RISD. The balance of figurative paintings with picture book qualities visually encapsulates both of these interests.”
AKD: As a creative, where are you taking us? What journey are we embarking on with Jacquelynn Perkins?
JP: “The turbulent, foreboding, energy of anxiety that exists in life flows as an undercurrent in some of my work. On the contrary, some paintings house a calm, steady, flowing power. Domestic house spaces that no longer can keep the wild animals and wild feminine power from exuding. Mindscapes into the unknown, an energetic visual map of a wandering ruminating mind working to be soothed. Adventure both back into the nostalgia of memories, and forward into the magical unknowns of the future.”
AKD: What’s next? Any upcoming projects or productions that we should keep an eye out for?
JP: “My first solo show will be April 2024 at Artworks Contemporary Art Center in my hometown Loveland, Colorado. This entirely new body of large scale work was painted over the last 3 years when I have been housebound and bed bound the majority of the time. During this time I started to heal and to love myself, my whole self which is reflected in these pieces.
My work “Salty Tomato Lips” will be part of a juried exhibition A(MUSE)D – BOUCHE in 2024. Exact date and location in Manhattan TBD.
Plus, I’m seeking representation for a handful of picture books I have written and illustrated, including “Argyle Arrowroot”, an alphabet art book of rhythmic combinations of textile patterns and plant roots.”
Akeem is our founder. A writer, poet, curator and profuse sweater, he is responsible for the curatorial direction and overall voice of Quiet Lunch. The Bronx native has read at venues such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, KGB Bar, Lovecraft and SHAG–with works published in Palabra Luminosas and LiVE MAG13. He has also curated solo and group exhibitions at numerous galleries in Chelsea, Harlem, Bushwick and Lower Manhattan.