About

Artist Statement

Influenced by the oral history of her family’s arrival in the U.S from Mexico and Catholic upbringing, Aquino transforms found objects, family photographs, and cultural artifacts like cornhusks, into personal relics and mementos. Aquino’s process includes breaking and reassembling these objects to mirror the fragmented nature of cultural and familial memory. The act of collaging materials allows her to create abstract forms of memoir, portraiture, and nonlinear storytelling.

When stories and memories are retold over time, or when photographs disappear, or family members pass away, there is a sudden urgency to capture and preserve family recipes or record voices. Aquino collects familial ephemera to connect the indigenous and colonial past, present, and future. This often leads her to forge her own mythologies, blurring the lines between reality and imagination. As a child of immigrants, she constructs these in-between-worlds that help bridge the divide created by migration and displacement, honoring and celebrating her roots while navigating her place in a new cultural landscape of belonging.

Bio  

Jessica Elena Aquino is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and horticulturist from Santa Ana, CA. She earned her B.A from Colgate University and an MFA at the PA Academy of the Fine Arts. She has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington (2022, Arlington, VA), Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts (2022; Grand Rapids, MI), Creative Art Alliance (2021, Baltimore, MD), and Anna Zorina Gallery (2019; Manhattan, NY). Jessica was an artist in residence at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Chautauqua School of Art, Textile Arts Center, Santa Fe Art Institute and at The Chrysalis Institute. Aquino was a recipient of the Murray Dessner Travel Grant. She has given visiting artist lectures at Rowan University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Haverford College. Aquino has a background in horticulture and education working for the PA Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, NY. ​Currently Aquino is participating in the 2024 Canopy Program with the NYC Crit Club. Aquino currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.