Pond Gallery is pleased to present Doily, a solo-exhibition of new work by artist, Jacquelin Zazueta. Doily explores ancestral passages through time and space. Familial and historical narratives unfold like spiderwebs, their settings oscillating between Earth, purgatory, and heaven. This exploration is pushed by a general interest in folk craft traditions and storytelling; particularly objects that have historically been made by women.
“I focused on the doily shape mainly because I had collected a large number of them and have always loved their symbolism; which for me is about protection. Protection of furniture, but also of a craft that began with women to pass the time. When I see them in flea markets, they are usually crammed into small, unorganized piles, forgotten on a shelf. A small piece of cloth that once, for a moment, was the star of someone's crochet hook, someone's way to pass the time or to meditate with.”
In contrast with craft tradition, Zazueta utilizes digital fabrication techniques to produce 3D-scanned and printed sculptural interpretations of her collected doilies. These 3D-prints are then painted and flocked, resulting in objects that boast a playfully ambiguous materiality. Zazueta improvises additions to her doilies, like protective charms, by 3D-scanning and miniaturizing stuffed animals and ornaments - even her own limbs. Similarly crafted miniature weathervanes operate as directional guides, further tying this body of work to craft tradition.
In addition to sculptural work, Doily includes 2 graphite drawings and 12 wax pastel rubbings that depict hieroglyphic-like scenes of creatures and figures lost in an ethereal landscape. Inspired by the past-time of creating gravestone rubbings, Zazueta 3D-prints bas-relief blocks that she then makes rubbings from like monoprints. Once the image is exhausted, Zazueta flocks the block, forever closing the “matrix” from producing any more prints.
“The drawings are like maps, moving from hell through purgatory, earth, and heaven, and showing the characters you meet on these journeys: skeletons, grim reapers, diosas, horses, children, butterflies, dogs, birds, goats, sheep, lions, rabbits, and the guiding hands of ancestors showing you the way. I think many people feel lost right now, and these pieces were made for trying to find our way through.”
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Jacquelin Zazueta (b. 1997, Rogers, AR) currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. She graduated with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2019. Zazueta has shown nationally at galleries and spaces like Underdonk in New York, LVL3 Gallery in Chicago, Cluley Projects, Wrong Marfa, Spy Projects and many more.