Vandana Jain

"Food Lion Redux,” 2007
Ink on paper
11” x 14”
Courtesy of the artist
Estimated value: $250
Starting bid: $100

http://www.artcodex.org/vandana_jain 

Vandana Jain was born in Queens, NY in 1975. She graduated from the Steinhardt School at New York University in 1996 and has since been actively involved in exhibiting her work. In 2003, she participated in the AIM program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. She was one of the recipients of the Socrates Sculpture Park's Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2007. She has shown at a variety of venues, including P.S. 1, the Queens Museum, ABC No Rio, Momenta, Toronto Free Gallery and the Soap Factory. Currently based in Brooklyn, she uses various elements of consumer culture such as corporate logos and product wrappers to create pattern-based artwork.  She likes to set the symbology of corporate culture against the iconography of more traditional belief systems, often using traditional or labor-intensive image-making methods to offset the mass-produced nature of the imagery.

Artist statement:

"Since 2001, I have been primarily working with well-known corporate logos, sometimes also incorporating slogans, wrappers and packaging.   I often place these elements into quasi-religious contexts, arranging logos into mandalas or creating ritualistic spaces based on ad campaigns.   I am interested in examining the deep influence of corporate and consumer culture on modern life, through a contrast of hand and machine; individual and conglomerate.

Since my work is based on the appropriation and recontextualization of corporate branding, I have been free to cultivate diverse styles and media, and strive for the perfect coupling of an idea and its embodiment. This calls for a wide-ranging studio practice that includes painting, embroidery, architectural models and installation.   I often use labor-intensive and handmade art practices that will contrast with the mechanical aesthetic of the corporate logo, and that stand in for the laborer/producer.

Recently, I have been exploring the ideas of the privatization of personal and public space through architectural models for fantastic structures. What if the AT&T logo was used as the starting point for a mammoth housing complex? Or if cave dwellings were juxtaposed onto the architecture of water bottles?   What if highway overpasses were shaped into logos, channeling drivers through the GE loop on the way home?   These irrational, implausible structures seem impossible to imagine, yet serve as routes of inquiry into the complexity of the human/corporate relationship."