Jennifer Shotton - Shark Dream

jennifer shotton

My work is informed by layered combinations of materials and imagery in the service of an open-ended form of personal story telling. Through the visual exploration of memory, metaphor, and identity, I have developed my own domestic mythology. My approach combines experimentation with a content-oriented sense of focus. The work is psychologically- charged, evoking personal and culturally loaded memory with the gritty realities of urban space. My concerns about urban identity, juxtaposed with the invention of myths or symbols, combine to form a feminine interior. I look closely at language, especially language that situates feminine identities and identifications. Through my usage of medium, I explore personal relations to these issues of femininity/spaces/narratives. For example, "ScreamBig" is a playful use of symbol, expressing the depth of a certain feminine experience of memory. I work with painting, drawing, photography, digital imagery, found images and found objects. Through the layering of mixed media I attempt to convey an experience of the city that remains unsettled. The connection of parts to whole in my work is important – I think of the work as a network of relationships. I juxtapose ideas and images that address these relations of city, language and gendered metaphor.