STATEMENT OF WORK

Jeri Coppola
Artist Statement
 
 
In my experience, things tend to happen just when you are looking away.  Our ideas tend to slip from our grasp, ruling over us by hiding in the images and things that surround us.
                                                                                                - Ernst Fischer
 As long as the glass is not broken, you look at the view not at the glass.

                                                                                                - Anri Sala
 
I am not so interested in the new image, but I am very interested in drawing your attention to see something that is "always there" but unnoticed.  That familiar alley suddenly captures your eye, and then the light shifts, and it goes back into the background. Back to what it always was.  I want that moment.
 
The internal space of memory bridges the external world around us.  My landscapes become a metaphor for memory and sets the story into motion.  I am the voice-over of my work, seemingly absent, but you know my intentions.  We dont know the story, but there seems to be one.  The flow between real and imagined becomes blurred and travels between narrative and dream state.  Often there is a hint of nightmare or discomfort, and I am as interested in loss of memory as I am in remembering.  What is left out is often as important as what is said.  Specific gestures and places hold memories that are personal but at the same time universal. 
 
I use different mediums and materials, and there is always some aspect of the photograph in my work, even if the image gets dropped at the end. I often make lightboxes that range from traditional square or rectangular shapes to using the body as a more sculptural form of what a lightbox can be.