Jacinta Bunnell…a Medal for Honesty
by Jay Blotcher
“Basically, it’s been explained that my eyes got wall-eyed in the accident, and so when I try to read, I have to focus on the words and my eyes get strained.”
The first piece created after the accident was “Medal for Lying” a multimedia work comprising Bunnell’s collage and painting. Laying down the papers was a comfortable exercise, but drawing was not. Bunnell finally painted the outline of a butterfly on the multi-hued field.
“I’ve always been crafty, but I never really decided with intention to make much art at all. And [the injury] pushed me to do it and it opened up a whole new world.”
Her choice of image in this work is telling; confined to her apartment for weeks after the accident, she naturally gravitated to a symbol of flight and freedom. The title of the piece emerged after the work was finished. Reviewing the collage pieces, Bunnell noticed the words “medal for lying” in one of the squares.
Serendipity governs her art-making, Bunnell admitted. One work coaxed into existence by random events is “Abode of the Message.” One week last year, Bunnell snatched up a vintage children’s puzzle of the United States at a yard sale. That same week, Julie Novak brought over her latest find: a 1950s book about motherhood, rife with images of McCarthy-era conformity. Later, Bunnell was listening to a National Public Radio segment on overpopulation when the concept suddenly crystallized. Bunnell shook the wooden pieces from the puzzle tray, affixed one of Novak’s faux-cheery images and painted a row of graphs over the images, producing satire that simultaneously tweaks the oppression of motherhood and its global implications. CONTINUE...
|
