About
Photo credit by Marissa Baez
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Artist Statement
Jessica Elena Aquino (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist working in weaving, printmaking, sculpture, and installation to explore themes of migration, relationship to land, and ancestral knowledge. As a first-generation Mexican American and grandchild of basket weavers, Aquino is influenced by the oral histories of my family’s arrival in the U.S. from Mexico and their Catholic upbringing. They transform found objects, family photographs, and cornhusks into personal relics and mementos. Aquino's process involves breaking and reassembling these materials to mirror the fragmented nature of memory, creating abstract forms of memoir, portraiture, and nonlinear storytelling. As a child of immigrants, Aquino inhabits in-between worlds and identities, forging their own mythologies and archives that blur the lines between reality and imagination, while honoring and celebrating their roots and navigating her place within shifting cultural landscapes of belonging. Bio Jessica Elena Aquino is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and horticulturist from Santa Ana, California, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (VA), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (MI), Creative Alliance (MD), Anna Zorina Gallery (NYC), and NARS Foundation (NYC). Aquino was recently an Artist-in-Residence as a Windgate Fellow at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith, and they are finishing a Printmaking Fellowship at Manhattan Graphics Center in Summer 2025. Aquino's past residencies include the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Santa Fe Art Institute, Chautauqua School of Art, Textile Arts Center, and the Chrysalis Institute. She is a recipient of the Murray Dessner Travel Grant, which supported her research in natural dyeing and tapestry weaving in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. Jessica has presented visiting artist talks at Rowan University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Haverford College. Alongside her studio practice, she has worked in arts education and horticulture at institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PAFA, and the Museum of Modern Art. |