Jill Parisi
My works celebrate the plant and animal kingdom’s wide palette and intricate patterns. The process for creating the flora and fauna existing in my imaginary ecosystems can be likened to jazz- I’m riffing on nature, taking colors, structures, etc. from a variety of species and places, and reconfiguring them in a new way. Materials such as translucent tissue weight papers and glass inform these fantastic and ephemeral species.
These hybrids of various botanical and zoological species employ careful hand-color application, drawing, hand cut components, and a combination of printmaking techniques. The resulting fictional works reflect a delicate intricacy that requires time-intensive craftsmanship. Many of my works react to viewer proximity, or the airflow within an exhibition space, making the pieces seem to come to life when approached, evoking a sense of playfulness.
Observation in the field, and the study of botanical and zoological texts and illustrations, from antiquity to the present, are important to my work. I am interested in all the possibilities for transforming paper and use techniques including sculpture, pyrography, lithography, intaglio, digital printing, and ebru and suminagashi marbling methods (from Turkey, Iran and Japan). I make some of my own papers, and others are obtained from sources in Nepal and Japan.
I’m influenced by numerous sources, such as the work of Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Delaney, and Winifred Lutz; the writings of Donald Culross Peattie, the expertise of the master papermakers in the Japanese prefectures who specialize in refined hand-papermaking, and many of my contemporaries who explore print and paper in ways both old and new. But mostly my work is inspired by my curiosity for the rich possibilities that printmaking, handmade papers, and glass offer for creating works that push traditional boundaries and reflecting a reverence for the natural world. The works I make require patience and dedication, and serve as a meditation for me. It offers the viewer something to wonder at, a tonic to the fast paced, screen based world that we live in today.
Enhancing the space and transporting the viewer are forefront in creating my public commissions. They reflect my desire to bring joy and beauty to viewers in public spaces. My designs begin as works on paper, are translated into digitally, and then realized in durable materials. The resulting fictional works reflect a delicate intricacy that requires time-intensive craftsmanship. When translated into glass, the viewer can see the changing light of day, and the resulting colorful reflections moving accordingly, cast onto the viewers and/or the surrounding architecture.
