jeana eve klein

 

Set Up, 2016

59.5 x 71 inches

inkjet printing, acrylic pain, recycled fabric.

Statement

I trespass in abandoned houses. I spy on the people who once lived inside, watching them through the telescope of time. I get to know their histories in fragments, in fiction, and in retrospect. Their ghostly voices speak to me from the ruins, telling me why they celebrated, how they loved, what brought them joy, what gave them pain, what they wore, what they ate, why they fled. Later in my studio, I digitally merge and manipulate the photographic evidence scavenged from these forgotten homes. I then break these images apart and print them piecemeal on recycled fabric: scraps from my late grandmother’s church quilting group, each with its own forgotten history. I stitch the pieces together to create compositional wholes before adding my own speculative story in acrylic paint. In the end, each piece is no longer image alone, but is image and object in quilt form.

 

JEANA EVE KLEIN

Professor, Department of Art,

Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

Around the age of 7, Jeana Eve Klein pillaged her mother’s knitting basket and made 100 yarn pom-poms which she strung together and hauled through the house on a leash, like a long, limp pet snake. In the decades since, she has continued exploring the tactile, compulsive joy of textiles through both undergraduate (North Carolina State University) and graduate (Arizona State University) degrees in fibers. Klein’s work has been exhibited widely, including recent solo exhibitions at OZ Arts (Nashville, TN), Charleston Heights Arts Center (Las Vegas, NV), and Artspace (Raleigh, NC). Recent group shows have included the Museum of Design in Atlanta and PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in Miami Beach. She is a 2014 recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship.