Jj Love is 32 raccoons in a body suit who rarely agree on anything. Their art forms are varied, but a love of color and light and a childlike (or kit-like) wonder with the world, both real and fantastical, is at the heart of everything she does. Jj is an artist, educator, and all-around good guy. He went to undergrad across multiple colleges in NC and Grad school in only one in Vermont. Forever cursed with thirty-two different opinions, life is never boring for this multifaceted system.
Artist Statement-
Blobs of color become land masses, figures, and creatures; I see my own world. A world of adventure and danger where things are candy coated on the outside but hide monsters. Pits of golden light lure the unsuspecting tourist, who finds it’s too late to escape once they have moved toward it. Deep pits of memory, despair, and longing pull you in as you relive the past. Drips of color line up neatly side by side, except when they don’t, and blend and merge to create new colors, lines, and textures. The ocean of color calls, and there, a ship in the distance, sailing through dark waters. A blue-pink sky peeks over the ship as it heads to elephant head rock. A new texture created through questionable methods beckons us to look closer. Inside, a dark that is cozy, like a hammock in a copse of trees hidden away from the world. A safe space in a chaotic world.
What I see in my work is my own world, but I want everyone to see their own world, and I want to hear about it. Sitting with someone else as they describe what they see creates a shift in perspective that allows me to see their version of my work. The work becomes even more than what I initially saw; it becomes new through the eyes of the viewer.
My art is varied and experimental; the media and forms are continually changing and informed by an evolving holistic journey of creative expression, universal partnership, and the means to connect and communicate.
Through all the incarnations of my art, I seek to let all layers of my consciousness, including dream worlds, spill into the everyday waking state and to engage and encourage viewers to do the same - seeing their own visions through mine, and hearing my visions in their own words. This allows us to revisit and illuminate a well-traveled and shared path beyond the boundaries and conflicts of ordinary life.
Letting the magic of the universe guide my eye and my hand brings forth surprises, revelations, and delight in both the mundane and the spiritual fantastic.