Danielle Jones
What is Left
What is Left responds to collisions between predisposed psychological and physical tensions; mental instability and natural disaster. I am interested in the human response to prepare for what can not be prepared for, protect what can not be protected, and fix what can only be momentarily restored. A cycled response to cycled conditions.
I explore these ideas through the actions of mending tarp, a material woven with histories of concealing permanent wounds to address an impulsive and exhaustive need to continually repair what‘s irreparable.
I am fixated on moments surfacing in between stages of disaster, decay, and deterioration. They are moments that foster a slow-building momentum and a shift in perspective. It is a growth that quietly multiplies and expands when exposed to harsh conditions. These are forms in transition and I make spaces for them.
My practice is fueled by a compulsion to construct, to deconstruct, and to piece back together with materials that are intrinsically as vulnerable as they are strong. Working with this dichotomy, I explore the materiality of paper and tarp while understanding their limits and exploiting their strengths. They are pushed through weathered progressions of staining, drawing, and painting until I tear them into scraps. Surrounded by fragments that were once whole, I become invested in routines that are encouraged by the cumulative effect of small actions. It is a process that examines the boundaries of materials—preparing, breaking, and mending in a cycle that is never finished—to speak to the inevitable alternation of disaster and recovery that characterizes human experience.
