Jessica Halonen

The images in Scattered related to a specific physical state, in this case the artist’s diabetes.  In the spirit of doing art true to personal experience, and in keeping with the contemporary art world’s interest in the hard sciences as inspiration, the artist has become known for paintings that are abstracted from the formal language of medical bar graphs.

Artist Statement

Over the past several years, my work has explored dysfunctional biological systems, focusing on issues related to endocrinology and metabolism. It is often influenced by the decorative and design qualities found in the medical field, such as pharmaceutical supplies, textbook diagrams, graphs and diseased cells. I emphasize these qualities (patterns, sequences, color) in specific ways to mimic the image and give it a benign connotation.

More recently, my work has been less faithful to the original image. The paintings in the show are based on scientific spore-like growths but are very loose representations of what you may find in a textbook. The installations are based on our often ineffective efforts to physically and administratively manage disease. While the works in this exhibition were developed with this in mind, my intent is to appeal to more universal issues of balance and control.