About Me
Artist Bio
Jackson Domenico is currently a 22 year old in his senior year at the University of Florida, where he is seeking a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a certificate in ceramics. He works interdisciplinarily in fiber arts, ceramics, and painting, and has exhibited work in his home state of Florida, as well as in Maryland, Colorado, Mississippi, and North Carolina, most recently being awarded “Best in Show” at the National Juried Exhibition in Oxford, MS. Domenico’s work revolves around themes of queerness, community, craft, memory, and environmental ecology in the face of the anthropocene.
Artist Statement
In my practice, I operate in ceramics, fiber art, and painting, and use these ways of working to synthesize themes of community, craft, memory, queerness, and environmental ecology in the anthropocene. My grandmother, a formidable seamstress who spent her entire life amassing knowledge of sewing and textiles, is now an actively declining resident in a memory care facility. I wish so dearly that I could build upon her progress instead of having to start from the basics. Inherited knowledge exists across many species, with animals constructing nests or homes for themselves without ever being taught. My work speculates about if the specialized labor of craft could be preserved by being passed down as instinct, and if the knowledge of making could be encoded into our DNA. The forms I make are biomorphic, referencing microorganisms, botanicals, and these various other natural structures. Since starting to crochet, a labor that can only be done by hand, I have then dipped these organic forms into slip, and then burned them out in the kiln. The result is a direct translation of fiber to ceramics, which then allows for the work to persist on a scale far beyond my own life into an anthropocenic future.