"Spine", 2006 Photo-collage on mixed media 6' 8"H x 10'L x 8'W

Jeannette Louie is a visual artist who creates social statements through photo-collage installations. She has exhibited at Homie, Berlin, Germany, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, MI, Mills College Art Museum, CA, Esso Gallery, NY, ISE Cultural Foundation, NY, Ace Gallery, NY, Spaces, OH, Sala 1, Italy and Alberto Peola Arte Contemporanea, Italy. Her awards and honors include a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Fellowship, a Creative Capital Foundation Grant and a Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome. She is a recipient of numerous fellowships, from the Brodsky Center at Rutgers University, Yaddo, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program, Roswell Program, Vermont Studio Center, Skowhegan School and Sculpture Space.

More of Jeannette's work can be seen at www.jeannettelouie.com

I am excessively absorbed by thought, particularly the type of thinking that is imaginative and influential to transforming self-identification. For the past year, I had been working on a series that examined the potentiality of daydreaming as a site of private discourse. During that time, the desire to employ research subjects in my studio practice heightened. I had tired of observing my own subjectivity and wanted to absorb the subjectivities of others. When I stumbled upon the Blue Sky Artist-in-Residence call-out, I applied solely under the belief that the program could offer me the opportunity to observe live human subjects. The group of teenage subjects I subsequently received were intellectually capable, but unfortunately reticent and ignorant about the subject of daydreaming. Most of them were unable to admit they experienced daydreams and clung to interpreting their more dramatic nocturnal counterparts. I based my research upon a cognitive psychologist’s questionnaires (Jerome Singer). My goal was to uncover how the mind formulates iconic imagery during the state of daydreaming. The teenage subjects were given a myriad of aesthetic tasks which involved creating with the photo-collage medium. Over the course of eight weeks, the individuals gained the ability to not only verbally articulate their thoughts, but began producing iconic imagery. They subsequently formed a unified social bond as well. In many ways, our collaborative approach was scientifically structured and defiantly loyal to achieving a collective discourse. My role was one of being an instigator, observer, researcher and gleaner. Unbeknownst to the teenagers, they evolved from being mere lumps of egocentric individuals into a decisive, articulate collective that could apply critical thought and discursive judgment while supplying me with the iconic imagery I needed to manifest the installation, “Nocturne”. Needless to say, the ability to transform my studio practice was exhilarating.