Vestiges
Jessica Simmons

The works produced by Jessica Simmons during her ‘acePIRAR residency were exhibited in the ‘aceNITE Traces that took place in the Fundación ‘ace. By making use of different materials found in the the city and techniques developed inside the workshop, the artist put together a series of pieces that explore with hazard/chance, traces and the translation processes that take place when one interacts with new surroundings.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

The body of work I have produced at ‘ace stems from my interest in both the formal and indexical qualities of a “found” mark – from the indiscriminate scratches and scars found on exterior walls to the haphazard stains and scuffs on the floor. I’m interested in how the accumulation of these marks can function as forensic indices to the physical history of their own making.

Combining methods of drawing, photography, and printmaking, I have used the accumulated marks, fragments, traces, lines and urban scars from my surrounding physical environment – the city of Buenos Aires – as material for my own investigations into mark-making.

This series, entitled Vestiges, engages in a translative process with the city’s own material and phenomenological history.  The word vestige bears a direct relation to the works’ material backbones. Defined as both a nearly-absent trace and a functionless bodily appendage, a vestige is dually connected with and disembodied from its original context. The prints’ and drawings’ originating marks are vestigial – both dislocated and dismembered, present and absent. Only vestiges remain.