Jackie Sleper

Stories. Lyrical reflection on existence and nature. Jackie Sleper’s world of reference is love, not in its erotic sense, but in the more intimate and imaginative sense of a ‘beautiful’ fairytale. It does not disappoint, but seduces man and leads him along new paths in a world seen through the enchanted eyes of a child. Her works are dreamily surreal visions, featuring a joyful explosion of colours and forms, as if taken from virtual and rutilant ‘collages’ of images. Her painting method encompasses the realism of photographic images, mounted and merged with ‘oversize’ elements, overturning reality in a dreamlike fashion. These images are combined with chromatically synthetic gestural expressiveness, reducing the objects and figures to icons of a child-like imagination and carrying us through the pages of a modern, or better still, post-modern novel. The artist’s sculptural career also develops in the same way, along a parallel course. Her three-dimensional works feature a substantially similar conceptual process. They comprise the assembly of clearly defined and recognisable objects made from different materials (porcelain, semiprecious stones, metals, plastic, resin, etc.), which have often been changed back to their real original colour. The ‘unicum’ result expresses a thought or, better yet, a lyrical reflection on existence and nature, which is often contaminated and put at risk by man’s cynical pragmatism. Her symbolic and surreal sculptures paraphrase life, evoking a whispered modern parable, which mixes occidental and oriental philosophies and religions. They contain the mystic of nature and the joy of life in a simple and serene explosion of a cosmic vibration. The bright primary colours, created using translucent enamels, feature pearly reflections that almost transform the shaped resin masses into precious, fragile porcelain and mother-of-pearl items, contributing to a return to elementary figuration, as divulged by Pop Art, but including post-ideological and trans-ideological references, as a consistent reflection of contemporary or post-modern art. These works caress the eyes and calm the soul, going straight to man’s heart without the ideological and provocative virulence of twentieth century avant-garde movements. The persuasiv"e and placid message of these works is also strong, decisive and extremely lucid, emphasised by the comments with which Jackie Sleper accompanies her sculptures. Just think of “Modestia”, an ode to the humble yet ever free horse, and that which it represents in ethical terms. Some elements recur throughout her symbolic vocabulary, such as the large roses (in “Modestia”, “Tenzin” and “Blue Royal Duck”), the ‘talking’ animals (in “Camee”) and the small putti (“Innocence”). The latter refers to the ethical and didactic fairytale, which has close connections with the ancient world of myths (a word that means ‘story’ in Greek), sometimes expressly cited in a modern key, as in “Thea tis Thalassas”. They also have a moralistic aspect, in the dynamic and fragile defenceless purity of young children (as in the universal ode of Vivere).

Her colours are not chosen at random, nor are they simply harmonious. They are always linked to the meaning which each colour has for man and to their effects on the psyche (blue, red, etc.). Her perfect and softly simple forms, in dynamic expansion, are almost symbolised by ‘rebirth’ in the purity of Clarity, placing Sleper’s artistic production in a highly original context in the field of poetically ‘didactic’ sculpture and the contemporary European art scene.

Just think of “Modestia”, an ode to the humble yet ever free horse, and that which it represents in ethical terms. Some elements recur throughout her symbolic vocabulary, such as the large roses (in “Modestia”, “Tenzin” and “Blue Royal Duck”), the ‘talking’ animals (in “Camee”) and the small putti (“Innocence”). The latter refers to the ethical and didactic fairytale, which has close connections with the ancient world of myths (a word that means ‘story’ in Greek), sometimes expressly cited in a modern key, as in “Thea tis Thalassas”. They also have a moralistic aspect, in the dynamic and fragile defenceless purity of young children (as in the universal ode of Vivere). Her colours are not chosen at random, nor are they simply harmonious. They are always linked to the meaning which each colour has for man and to their effects on the psyche (blue, red, etc.). Her perfect and softly simple forms, in dynamic expansion, are almost symbolised by ‘rebirth’ in the purity of Clarity, placing Sleper’s artistic production in a highly original context in the field of poetically ‘didactic’ sculpture and the contemporary European art scene.

Text by Giampaolo Trotta