Hibernation: Resting in Peace: A Sculptural Installation By Jen Raimondi
by Doug Norris. read this article...
Essay for Hibernation: Resting In Peace
Ellen Driscoll, 2006. read this article...
Essay for Hibernation: Resting In Peace
by Cynthia Farnell, May 2006. read this article...
Editor’s Note, “Art of the matter,” excerpt Janine Weisman, editor. read this article...
“Creature Discomfort” by Cynthia Farnell. read this article...
Mercury, vol. 248 no. 22, June 1 - June 7 2005, Newport, RI
Jen Raimondi’s enigmatic sculptures are piles of slumbering vulnerability.Faceless Ophelias lie recumbent in washbasins, others are draped over footstools like fleshy odalisques. One is on its back, cloven hooves in the air, her round belly exposed. I find myself whispering in her presence, as if she is alive. I feel conflicted. Should I be afraid of this creature, or protective of it? Should I be repulsed or aroused? Or both?
Raimondi’s otherworldly tableaux began as small sculptures based on drawings of real one-celled marine organisms, and have since evolved into human-scale invented mammalian creatures, on display in vaguely Victorian domestic environments. The forms are [sculpted in ceramic clay] and covered in materials like pantyhose or buckskin. She often uses paint [to create the illusion of skin].
“The imagery has evolved, but the subject matter remains the same. It’s about finding sensuality and vulnerability in the forms,” the 30-year old sculptor said.
A Rhode Island native, the flavor of the state’s rural areas seeps into her work. “What underlies them is very personal to myself and my family. A lot of it has to do with my mother’s past… she grew up in a big farmhouse in Chepachet. I’m into that hidden, kind of sinister New England farmland energy.”