The Doll's House, 2013, Mixed Media
ABOUT THE WORK
My work is a collective healing practice, ranging from generating insightful discomfort to confronting anger, anguish, trauma, loss and sadness in order to evolve. My body acts as an intimate memoir that reveals the vulnerable and echoes a view of the world as expressed in a repertoire of gestures. My artwork reflects the notion that the creative imagination can find its way through our most complex conflicts. The therapeutic-transformational approach stems from a humanistic stream that integrates practices aimed to break down barriers put up by modern systems. The objective is to move beyond the limited boundaries of the ego. The work’s development is created in full transparency and tailored to each space and community depending on the need. This work is explored through authentic movement sessions led by intuitive emotional intelligence bringing the artist and participants deeper into the human condition: an awareness that begins with the self and ultimately extends beyond. My creative process is informed by world events with an unapologetic concern for human evolution. This practice is based on art’s transformative role by embracing vulnerability as armor. Humility is not weakness; it articulates truth. During the documented sessions, pre-conditioned emotional patterns are felt, and then released, thereby clearing obstacles to truths and resolving persistent painful human limitations. During this process I record sessions, then re-record the recordings, transferring the videos from screen to screen creating ‘air gaps’ that generate distance while producing a feeling of intimate voyeurism. My artistic practice reconditions how we process information and creates new pathways of understanding in order to co-construct questions of ethics, empathy, and imagination that include the nuanced fragilities of our shared stories.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jillian is a video, installation, performance, and movement artist, as well as an intuitive healer. She has danced at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, with The Miami City Ballet under the tutelage of Edward Villella and trained with The Boston Ballet. After acquiring a BA from New York University in Art History, Psychology, and Studio Art, Jillian earned her Masters of Professional Studies in Creativity Development and Art Therapy from Pratt Institute. She co-created and managed the first mental health program at University Settlement’s Children’s Corner in Brownsville; co-created the first mental health program at The League’s Education and Treatment Center’s LAND Gallery; and she has worked in the inpatient acute psychiatric unit at NYU’s Langone Medical Center. She worked as Director of Development at RxArt, a nonprofit organization that transforms sterile healthcare environments by commissioning contemporary artists to create site-specific installations. She performed in the 2017 Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Party with Quenton Stuckey. Jillian also performs with contemporary dance company FlucT+ at The Lever House in Upward Facing Control Table Top curated by Maccarone Gallery, Studio 94 and Performa; and at Secret Project Robot for Model Home, a performance art installation created by Monica Mirabile. She has performed with choreographer Sigrid Lauren in pieces including Nike Dead Daddy Dog at Wild Project, and in The Spring Break Art Show in partnership with Kickstarter and Current Sessions at Skylight Moyinhan Station. Jillian choreographed and performed work in curator Sarah Kinlaw’s Living Library and has choreographed and performed in the piece Duality with Uta Bekaia in Susan Bartsch’s Art-A-Porter at Chashama. Jillian has designed and built large-scale installations for Output, Paperbox, Glasslands and at Pioneer Work in December 2018. Jillian was Otion Front Studio’s September 2016 artist-in-residence, resident artist at BUOYRR summer 2017, artist-in-residence at Arts, Letters and Numbers October 2018; residence at SomoS in Berlin, July 2019, and artist-in-residence at Art and Culture Today’s IMAGO in Bulgaria, October 2019.