Jessica Palomo
Palomo received her BFA in Sculpture from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and her MFA in Drawing from Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Palomo has art education experience at both the college and high school levels and held positions at prestigious art institutions like the Phoenix Art Museum. She was the artist in residence at the Palazzo Rinaldi in 2011 with a solo exhibition in Noepoli, Italy. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Contemporary Art Space in China, locally at the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona, and in Phoenix, AZ. Recently she received the 2023 Artists to Work Grant from the City of Phoenix and is represented by Bentley Gallery. Palomo works in drawing and sculpture to investigate uncomfortable situations. Currently, her work explores the effects of grief and trauma.
Education
MFA, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 2017
BFA, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, 2007
Expertise Areas
Area of study
Breaking Up
Breaking Up examines how contemporary artists explore different types of fragmentation, or “breaking up,” through their work | February - August 2022 | Phoenix Art Museum | Curated by Rachel Sadvary Zebro | Photo by John Dowd
Artist statement
“By definition, trauma cannot be represented. But it can be approached, moved and transformed. This is not cure; it is poiesis: making.”
– Griselda Pollock
My work is a response to the grief of losing a loved one, a trauma that can overload and fracture the conscious mind, causing a shattered emotional state. Through abstraction and mark-making, I explore the dynamics of this ruptured reality that place identity and emotion in a liminal, ambiguous space.
By rendering only a handful of distinct organic forms, the eyes rest merely for a moment before plunging into a sea of textural marks. These expressive involuntary marks do what language cannot, intuitively creating a passageway to concealed memories, recording a trace of their complexities through drawing, and ultimately logging the intricate and multifaceted sensations of suffering in hopes of creating a truer empathetic connection. These drawings speak from the body, connecting, sustaining, and transmitting traumatic impressions with each varied gestural mark. The overall encounter is ambiguous in form and liminal in space, fluxing in perspective, and never providing a sense of clarity.