Sally Jablonsky 2024

Abstract

Through oil painting, clay sculpture, and a self published magazine, I explore the experience of being a body and an animal on the Earth. I use the body as a source of information to reveal the human fantasy while at the same time creating a new framework to live within–one that shows the human experience in the greater context of the natural world. My work explores: the experience of time and being a body relating to disability, what it is to be a human animal, art making as tool use, aesthetics and care as resistance, and nature as the appropriate context for chronically ill people’s (and maybe everyone’s) experiences. I am interested in undoing hierarchical values assigned to species and in looking to nature, not as a metaphor, but as a place to find commonality among the living beings of this planet. By allowing myself to move between a range of styles within the paintings, I show a respect for a number of things: the physical, the pleasure of looking and of making, and the importance of questioning aesthetics as an essential part of resistance and survival. As it is a part of the fantasy of ableism, I throw away mastery, and instead am guided by the pure fun of making as well as a questioning of my own aesthetic tendencies. Imagery in paintings (a shadow person resting on a floral couch, a tree at night, a doctors' visit, a waterfall scene, and a cat person) come from experiences I've had that have given me a certain kind of awareness of my body–a new perception and relationship involving care and maintenance, physical feeling, and mental picture of who and what I am. I invite viewers to unlearn that we are separate from nature, and to witness a journey through the kingdom of the sick.