Jennifer Celio
My delicately rendered drawings manipulate perception, creating fantastical iterations in which artificial and natural imagery fuse to become environmental allegories. Working in graphite pencil and powder on wood panels, I create obsessively detailed works with a variety of visual techniques, the imagery inspired by both the urban environment and the wilderness. The works juxtapose the banal with the unbelievable in works that speak to environmental degradation and the complicated human relationship with nature.
In my current series “Species in Danger,” each drawing highlights an endangered animal native to Southern California along with the human-made causes for its decline, juxtaposed with human practices and belief systems that I argue more rightly deserve to go “extinct.” The goal is to create a piece for every one of the dozens of federally endangered creatures in the varied ecosystems of Southern California. From invertebrates to mammals, this series paints a picture of the intertwined fates of humanity and other animal species.
The body of work employs a visual language of diverse imagery such as pop culture references, old-fashioned decorative borders, clip art, emojis, and a variety of the iconic California palm trees to illustrate the circumstances threatening animals on the federal endangered species list. Palm trees are incorporated to add another layer of meaning, as they both personify the Southern California vibe yet are a predominantly non-native, water-thirsty species. Symbolism and references to historical events hint at specific aspects of humanity’s predilections to destruction and polarization in a personal expression of what I think needs to become obsolete instead of these creatures. The highly detailed works employ the dissonance of pleasing aestheticism with alarming information in advocacy for the fate of the natural world.
Jennifer Celio is a native of Southern California who loves Long Beach. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Cristinerose Gallery and Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts in New York City; elephant art space, Haphazard Gallery and the Creative Artists’ Agency in Los Angeles, CA; La Estacion Gallery in Chihuahua, Mexico; romo gallery in Atlanta, GA; Bandini Art in Culver City, CA; California State University Dominguez Hills in Carson, CA; Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA; and Phantom Galleries in Long Beach, CA. Her drawings represented the Southern California region in the 2015 biennial at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Her work has also been in group exhibits in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Houston; and Berlin, London, Mexico, Colombia, Greece, Istanbul, and Canada; and in other museum exhibits in San Francisco, Long Beach, Laguna Beach, and Indianapolis, IN. She is the recipient of individual artist grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2012) and The City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (2014.) She has received residencies from Yaddo (N.Y.), and the Long Beach Museum of Art (CA.) She has a B.F.A. from Cal State Fullerton (1996.)
Her interdisciplinary artwork has received critical review in such publications as The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Art Papers, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Art Ltd. Magazine, Artillery Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, Fabrik Magazine, Beautiful/Decay, The Huffington Post, Flavorpill, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
