Jaclyn Wright

Jaclyn Wright was born in 1986 in Peoria, IL. She received a Bachelor’s in Art from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in Cinema & Photography in 2009. She went on to get her Master’s of Fine Art in Photography at Indiana University in 2013. She has also studied at the Hospitalfield House Art Centre in Arboath, Scotland and at Kyoto University of Art & Design in Kyoto, Japan. She was the 2013 recipient of the Master’s of Fine Art Grant from Indiana University. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally and has been selected for several Internet galleries and blogs. She is currently the Visiting Artist in Residence at the University of Cincinnati.

View more of Jaclyn's work here 

In Japanese culture, the landscape is often surrounded by elaborate protective structures, made from cloth, straw and wooden beams. These designs are thoughtfully and meticulously put in place. Trees are often wrapped in komomaki, a traditional straw wrapping meant to keep out pests, or found under the umbrella of a yukitsuri, to keep heavy snow from breaking their branches. The desire to carefully control and preserve the landscape is significant to the Japanese aesthetic. This way of thinking, brought up the ways in which different cultures, and individuals, place significance on particular objects and philosophies. Much like an archeologist, I began to collect and catalog my own artifacts as a means for preservation. By approaching personal subject matter through a systematic perspective, I’ve been able to decontextualize and deconstruct the significance of each piece. The images are a reference to an anthropological perspective, so that they may, in some sense, become didactic regarding cultural and social practices. Through still life’s, the images mimic the way in which archival information is photographed, so that the subject may accurately represent “reality”.