Jennifer Celio
Jennifer Celio
Long Beach, CA, United States
About Jennifer Celio
My delicately rendered drawings manipulate perception, creating fantastical iterations in which artificial and natural imagery fuse to become newly impossible scenes. Processing seemingly disparate parts into a surreal whole, I derive inspiration from the urban environment, environmental issues, political topics, and graphic design and font elements. Working in graphite pencil on paper, I create obsessively detailed works with cross hatching techniques, mining a trove of symbols and objects from my collection of images and integrating them into an amalgamated version of reality. My recent body of work, titled “Not In My Back Yard,” references the “NIMBY” acronym that was coined within the environmental and conservation movement. These drawings explore the ugly elements of the urban environment, placing objects like food trucks, oil derricks, caged trees, graffiti, windmills, and out of place animals into imagined settings that seem plausible yet are dystopic. I use the juxtaposition between natural and man-made surroundings to illustrate the invasive tendencies of modern urbanization. Without blatantly depicting nature as being “under-siege” by modernity, the drawings instead capture the imbalance created when nature tries to reclaim or adapt to urban expansion. My work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Cristinerose Gallery and Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts in New York City, Haphazard Gallery and the Creative Artists’ Agency in Los Angeles, CA, romo gallery in Atlanta, GA, Bandini Art in Culver City, CA, California State University Dominguez Hills in Carson, CA, Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA, and Phantom Galleries in Long Beach, CA. My drawings represented the Southern California region in a 2015 biennial at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. My work has also been included in exhibits in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Houston; and Berlin, Mexico, Colombia, and Canada; and in other museum exhibits in San Francisco, CA, Long Beach, CA, Laguna Beach, CA, and Indianapolis, IN. I am the recipient of individual artist grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2012), The City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship (2014), The Center for Cultural Innovation’s Artist’s Resources for Completion grant (2012), a nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s (NY, NY) L.A. Art Grant Initiative (2013), the City of Long Beach, CA, Professional Artist Grant (2010), and the Hoff Foundation (2008). I was awarded a residency at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY) in 2014 and was the Artist-In-Residence at the Long Beach Museum of Art in May 2016. My artwork has received critical review in such publications as The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Art Papers, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Art Ltd. Magazine, Artillery Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, Beautiful/Decay, The Huffington Post, Flavorpill, New American Paintings (2003,) The Orange County Register, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Education:
B.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Fullerton in 1996
Exhibitions:
SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2017: Planes and Structures (two person exhibition with Helen Chung), 18th Street Arts Center, Santa
Monica, CA, October 2017.
Beyond the Horizon (two person exhibition with Martin Machado), The Italian American Museum
(Museo Italo Americano), San Francisco, CA, January 2017.
2016: Hitched to everything else, Haphazard Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, April 2016.
2014: Will there be an elephant?, Moorpark College Art Gallery, Moorpark, CA, November 2014.
2013: Not In My Backyard: Urban Drawings, California State University Dominguez Hills Art Gallery, Carson, CA, January 2013.
2012: Spotlight artist, Art San Diego-Contemporary Art Fair, Katherine Cone Gallery, September 2012.
2011: California Girls (2 person), Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, New York, NY, June.
Ghetto Birds and Suburban Dreams, Long Beach Playhouse Gallery, Long Beach, CA, April 2011.
2010: I wanna be here in my city, curated by Habib Kheradyar, Phantom Galleries L.A., Long Beach, CA, June 2010.
2007: “Next Exit”, New Drawings, Cristinerose Gallery, New York, NY, November 2007.
The World Around Us, (2 person), koelsch gallery, Houston, TX, January 2007.
2006: Topographic, The Mike Napoliello Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA, November 2006.
Next Exit, Bandini Art, Culver City, CA, August 2006.
Next Exit, romo gallery, Atlanta, GA, June 2006.
2004: Creative Artists’ Agency, Beverly Hills, CA, December 2004.
2003: There is Something, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA, June 2003.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (Selected)
2018: Salvage, Art Exchange, Long Beach, CA, January 2018.
Group Exhibit (title to be determined), curated by Paige Wery, Art Share L.A., Los Angeles, CA, January 2018.
2017: Static, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA, December 2017.
Entangled Loci, Hilbert Raum, Berlin, Germany, September 2017.
2016: Curiouser and Curiouser, BLAM Projects, Los Angeles, CA, October 2016.
The Fourth Wall, organized by Kristin Calabrese, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, September 2016.
Hysterical Fiction, curated by Ichiro Irie; La Estacion Arte Contemporaneo in Chihuahua,
Mexico; and Bogota, Columbia, August and October 2016.
Places and Spaces, Sugarmynt Gallery, Pasadena, CA, April 2016.
Urban Transformations, California State University Dominguez Hills Art Gallery, Carson, CA, February 2016.
2015: South Bay Focus 2015, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, November 2015.
Wood Metal Screw 2, The Gabba Gallery, Los An
2014: Monochromart, 3 person show, Launch LA, Los Angeles, CA, August 2014.
C.O.L.A. Individual Artist Fellowships Exhibition (catalog) Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, May 2014.
Welcome to L.A./Please Come Again, Los Angeles International Airport Terminal 7/8, through the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, February 2014.
2013: A Visible Mark: Contemporary Drawings, Norco College Art Gallery, Norco, CA, October 2013.
2012: Legitimate Rape: Political Art in 2012, Katherine Cone Gallery, Culver City, CA, October 2012.
Featherweight, West Los Angeles College Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, October 2012.
California Girls, Katherine Cone Gallery, Culver City, CA, March 2012.
Obscured Lines: Contemporary Drawing in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Valley College Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, March 2012.
2011: Fabrications, Marx and Zavaterro, San Francisco, CA, January 2011.
Staccato, d.e.n. contemporary art, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.
2010: Neighborhood, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indiana, October 2010.
39NOW, (catalog) Sophia Louisa Projects, Los Angeles, CA, September 2010.
Backyard, Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, July 2010.
OsCene 2010 Biennial (catalog), Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, February 2010.
Something in the Air, Long Beach City College Art Gallery, Long Beach, CA, January 2010.
2009: Sweet Subversives: Contemporary California Drawings, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA, October 2009.