Jill Kerwick: Lipstick & Other Stories

Queue (detail)

Exhibition Checklist

All works are archival pigment prints, courtesy of the artist Leaving Home, 2014 20 x 20 ¼ in.

Big Friends, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Lipstick, 2013 20 x 19 ¾ in.

Bigwig, 2015 20 x 24 in.

Masculine and Feminine, 2016 20 x 24 ½ in.

Brood, 2014 20 x 21 ¼ in.

Midwestern Roots, 2016 20 x 23 ¼ in.

Chat with Sergio, 2013 20 x 18 ¼ in.

Queue, 2013 20 x 21 ½ in.

Doris’s Home, 2013 20 x 21 ⅞ in.

Soft and Quiet, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Iced Tea, 2014 20 x 24 in.

Jill Kerwick working on site at her New Jersey farm Photo credit: Janet Rotchford

Cover: Lipstick (detail)

A New Home, 2016 20 x 23 ½ in.

Queue is fraught with such tension. Seven women sit on chairs in a single row, displaying varying degrees of ennui and engagement, as they wait for something or someone. While these women share a similar style and (understandably) resemble one another, Kerwick manages to convey a sense of their individual personalities by subtly differentiating their body language. Additionally, some of them randomly hold small animal or bird figurines in their hands, providing an interesting contrast to the larger-scaled birds in the background tapestry and adding another note of incongruity to the scene.

Iced Tea (detail)

female characters is an important signature element of the work and demonstrates Kerwick’s interest in juxtaposing the real and the artificial. Originally designed to hold floral bouquets, these ceramic head vases were popular in the 1950s and reflect mid-century ideals of feminine beauty. Here they lend a surrealistic edge to the work.

Leaving Home

July 22 – September 11, 2016 Jill Kerwick’s digital collages portray familiar-looking locales where surprising or even impossible things happen. These bucolic landscapes and cozy domestic interiors are populated by doll-faced women with perfect hairstyles and adorable but giant-size animals. While the scenes are somewhat unsettling, the artist describes them as “just real enough” to be believable—at least at first glance. Once we realize that they are in fact unreal, we have already fallen under their spell.

Kerwick’s current process, which grew out of her longstanding interest in traditional paper collage, combines low and high tech materials and methods. Arranging objects in front of paintings—her own, her late father’s, and thrift shop finds—she photographs these miniature stage sets and employs Photoshop to insert images of her body into the compositions. Her use of antique lady head vases to replace the heads of her

Kerwick's pairing of live animals with these doll-like females adds another quirky twist and reflects the artist’s lifelong love of animals. In fact, all of the animals appearing in her work live on her Monmouth County farm. Responding to the vulnerability of these creatures, she scales up their relative size, making them appear gigantic and empowering them with major roles in her visual stories. In Brood, a white chicken of monumental proportions towers over two seated women holding smaller hens in their laps. Rabbits feature prominently in several of the works, acting as confidantes to their human female friends.

The relative differences in scale may confound us as we wonder if the animals are mutant giants or if the women have shrunk to Lilliputian size. In actuality most of the components of the pictures—the animals, background settings, props and lady head vases—are photographed together at life-size scale. Only the artist’s body (and the occasional chair or sofa on which she sits) is out of proportion once Kerwick miniaturizes her image in Photoshop and pastes it into the various scenes.

The titles of the works may imply specific narratives, but these intriguing images also entice viewers to construct their own stories. Paradoxically, the strangeness of the scenes is tempered by their ordinariness. Engaged in common universal experiences like finding a home, making friends, or enjoying nature, Kerwick’s characters seem relatable despite their enigmatic circumstances. The push and pull between the commonplace and the bizarre further blurs the boundary between truth and fiction and charges the atmosphere of these scenes.

Single protagonists, like the woman in Doris’s Home, compel us to speculate about their back stories: What exactly is happening inside Doris’s home and why is she standing outside? Her blank expression offers no clues. In A New Home we wonder who is moving to a new home—the woman or the birds? Leaving Home features a woman departing her rural home with a suitcase in hand and accompanied by a giant rooster. Though slightly amusing and quite a bit less ominous, this scene suggests an affinity with Cindy Sherman’s iconic Untitled Film Still #48, which famously features a lone girl and her suitcase by the side of a highway. Like Sherman, Kerwick acts as a stand in for all of the human characters in her scenes, and like Sherman’s, her work embodies enough mystery and ambiguity to pose unanswered questions.

Reminiscent of skillfully composed film stills from a movie that is part fantasy, part science fiction, and part fairy tale, Kerwick’s collages leave us wanting more.

The artist challenges us to imagine both the back story and ending for a narrative that she only suggests.

Mary Birmingham, Curator

Top to bottom: A New Home, Brood, Doris’s Home

Queue is fraught with such tension. Seven women sit on chairs in a single row, displaying varying degrees of ennui and engagement, as they wait for something or someone. While these women share a similar style and (understandably) resemble one another, Kerwick manages to convey a sense of their individual personalities by subtly differentiating their body language. Additionally, some of them randomly hold small animal or bird figurines in their hands, providing an interesting contrast to the larger-scaled birds in the background tapestry and adding another note of incongruity to the scene.

Iced Tea (detail)

female characters is an important signature element of the work and demonstrates Kerwick’s interest in juxtaposing the real and the artificial. Originally designed to hold floral bouquets, these ceramic head vases were popular in the 1950s and reflect mid-century ideals of feminine beauty. Here they lend a surrealistic edge to the work.

Leaving Home

July 22 – September 11, 2016 Jill Kerwick’s digital collages portray familiar-looking locales where surprising or even impossible things happen. These bucolic landscapes and cozy domestic interiors are populated by doll-faced women with perfect hairstyles and adorable but giant-size animals. While the scenes are somewhat unsettling, the artist describes them as “just real enough” to be believable—at least at first glance. Once we realize that they are in fact unreal, we have already fallen under their spell.

Kerwick’s current process, which grew out of her longstanding interest in traditional paper collage, combines low and high tech materials and methods. Arranging objects in front of paintings—her own, her late father’s, and thrift shop finds—she photographs these miniature stage sets and employs Photoshop to insert images of her body into the compositions. Her use of antique lady head vases to replace the heads of her

Kerwick's pairing of live animals with these doll-like females adds another quirky twist and reflects the artist’s lifelong love of animals. In fact, all of the animals appearing in her work live on her Monmouth County farm. Responding to the vulnerability of these creatures, she scales up their relative size, making them appear gigantic and empowering them with major roles in her visual stories. In Brood, a white chicken of monumental proportions towers over two seated women holding smaller hens in their laps. Rabbits feature prominently in several of the works, acting as confidantes to their human female friends.

The relative differences in scale may confound us as we wonder if the animals are mutant giants or if the women have shrunk to Lilliputian size. In actuality most of the components of the pictures—the animals, background settings, props and lady head vases—are photographed together at life-size scale. Only the artist’s body (and the occasional chair or sofa on which she sits) is out of proportion once Kerwick miniaturizes her image in Photoshop and pastes it into the various scenes.

The titles of the works may imply specific narratives, but these intriguing images also entice viewers to construct their own stories. Paradoxically, the strangeness of the scenes is tempered by their ordinariness. Engaged in common universal experiences like finding a home, making friends, or enjoying nature, Kerwick’s characters seem relatable despite their enigmatic circumstances. The push and pull between the commonplace and the bizarre further blurs the boundary between truth and fiction and charges the atmosphere of these scenes.

Single protagonists, like the woman in Doris’s Home, compel us to speculate about their back stories: What exactly is happening inside Doris’s home and why is she standing outside? Her blank expression offers no clues. In A New Home we wonder who is moving to a new home—the woman or the birds? Leaving Home features a woman departing her rural home with a suitcase in hand and accompanied by a giant rooster. Though slightly amusing and quite a bit less ominous, this scene suggests an affinity with Cindy Sherman’s iconic Untitled Film Still #48, which famously features a lone girl and her suitcase by the side of a highway. Like Sherman, Kerwick acts as a stand in for all of the human characters in her scenes, and like Sherman’s, her work embodies enough mystery and ambiguity to pose unanswered questions.

Reminiscent of skillfully composed film stills from a movie that is part fantasy, part science fiction, and part fairy tale, Kerwick’s collages leave us wanting more.

The artist challenges us to imagine both the back story and ending for a narrative that she only suggests.

Mary Birmingham, Curator

Top to bottom: A New Home, Brood, Doris’s Home

Queue is fraught with such tension. Seven women sit on chairs in a single row, displaying varying degrees of ennui and engagement, as they wait for something or someone. While these women share a similar style and (understandably) resemble one another, Kerwick manages to convey a sense of their individual personalities by subtly differentiating their body language. Additionally, some of them randomly hold small animal or bird figurines in their hands, providing an interesting contrast to the larger-scaled birds in the background tapestry and adding another note of incongruity to the scene.

Iced Tea (detail)

female characters is an important signature element of the work and demonstrates Kerwick’s interest in juxtaposing the real and the artificial. Originally designed to hold floral bouquets, these ceramic head vases were popular in the 1950s and reflect mid-century ideals of feminine beauty. Here they lend a surrealistic edge to the work.

Leaving Home

July 22 – September 11, 2016 Jill Kerwick’s digital collages portray familiar-looking locales where surprising or even impossible things happen. These bucolic landscapes and cozy domestic interiors are populated by doll-faced women with perfect hairstyles and adorable but giant-size animals. While the scenes are somewhat unsettling, the artist describes them as “just real enough” to be believable—at least at first glance. Once we realize that they are in fact unreal, we have already fallen under their spell.

Kerwick’s current process, which grew out of her longstanding interest in traditional paper collage, combines low and high tech materials and methods. Arranging objects in front of paintings—her own, her late father’s, and thrift shop finds—she photographs these miniature stage sets and employs Photoshop to insert images of her body into the compositions. Her use of antique lady head vases to replace the heads of her

Kerwick's pairing of live animals with these doll-like females adds another quirky twist and reflects the artist’s lifelong love of animals. In fact, all of the animals appearing in her work live on her Monmouth County farm. Responding to the vulnerability of these creatures, she scales up their relative size, making them appear gigantic and empowering them with major roles in her visual stories. In Brood, a white chicken of monumental proportions towers over two seated women holding smaller hens in their laps. Rabbits feature prominently in several of the works, acting as confidantes to their human female friends.

The relative differences in scale may confound us as we wonder if the animals are mutant giants or if the women have shrunk to Lilliputian size. In actuality most of the components of the pictures—the animals, background settings, props and lady head vases—are photographed together at life-size scale. Only the artist’s body (and the occasional chair or sofa on which she sits) is out of proportion once Kerwick miniaturizes her image in Photoshop and pastes it into the various scenes.

The titles of the works may imply specific narratives, but these intriguing images also entice viewers to construct their own stories. Paradoxically, the strangeness of the scenes is tempered by their ordinariness. Engaged in common universal experiences like finding a home, making friends, or enjoying nature, Kerwick’s characters seem relatable despite their enigmatic circumstances. The push and pull between the commonplace and the bizarre further blurs the boundary between truth and fiction and charges the atmosphere of these scenes.

Single protagonists, like the woman in Doris’s Home, compel us to speculate about their back stories: What exactly is happening inside Doris’s home and why is she standing outside? Her blank expression offers no clues. In A New Home we wonder who is moving to a new home—the woman or the birds? Leaving Home features a woman departing her rural home with a suitcase in hand and accompanied by a giant rooster. Though slightly amusing and quite a bit less ominous, this scene suggests an affinity with Cindy Sherman’s iconic Untitled Film Still #48, which famously features a lone girl and her suitcase by the side of a highway. Like Sherman, Kerwick acts as a stand in for all of the human characters in her scenes, and like Sherman’s, her work embodies enough mystery and ambiguity to pose unanswered questions.

Reminiscent of skillfully composed film stills from a movie that is part fantasy, part science fiction, and part fairy tale, Kerwick’s collages leave us wanting more.

The artist challenges us to imagine both the back story and ending for a narrative that she only suggests.

Mary Birmingham, Curator

Top to bottom: A New Home, Brood, Doris’s Home

Queue (detail)

Exhibition Checklist

All works are archival pigment prints, courtesy of the artist Leaving Home, 2014 20 x 20 ¼ in.

Big Friends, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Lipstick, 2013 20 x 19 ¾ in.

Bigwig, 2015 20 x 24 in.

Masculine and Feminine, 2016 20 x 24 ½ in.

Brood, 2014 20 x 21 ¼ in.

Midwestern Roots, 2016 20 x 23 ¼ in.

Chat with Sergio, 2013 20 x 18 ¼ in.

Queue, 2013 20 x 21 ½ in.

Doris’s Home, 2013 20 x 21 ⅞ in.

Soft and Quiet, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Iced Tea, 2014 20 x 24 in.

Jill Kerwick working on site at her New Jersey farm Photo credit: Janet Rotchford

Cover: Lipstick (detail)

A New Home, 2016 20 x 23 ½ in.

Queue (detail)

Exhibition Checklist

All works are archival pigment prints, courtesy of the artist Leaving Home, 2014 20 x 20 ¼ in.

Big Friends, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Lipstick, 2013 20 x 19 ¾ in.

Bigwig, 2015 20 x 24 in.

Masculine and Feminine, 2016 20 x 24 ½ in.

Brood, 2014 20 x 21 ¼ in.

Midwestern Roots, 2016 20 x 23 ¼ in.

Chat with Sergio, 2013 20 x 18 ¼ in.

Queue, 2013 20 x 21 ½ in.

Doris’s Home, 2013 20 x 21 ⅞ in.

Soft and Quiet, 2014 20 x 22 ¼ in.

Iced Tea, 2014 20 x 24 in.

Jill Kerwick working on site at her New Jersey farm Photo credit: Janet Rotchford

Cover: Lipstick (detail)

A New Home, 2016 20 x 23 ½ in.