JACQUELYN MARIE GALLO
I am, for the most part, a writer. There is an interior world I am always trying to excavate, to make sense of and express to you, the reader, as well as myself—I too am my own reader in many ways. Yet, the raw energy and visual component of my work is drawn from outside forces. It is constantly grabbing from the leaves sputtering on the branches, the black eyes of an animal underwater, the colors that flow through every sentient, and non sentient, being. We first encounter the world through our bodies. It is only after that our minds begin to elaborate on what we’ve experienced. My artistic practice, be it photography, performance, painting, dance, divining, is always the first step of the writing, a first draft, if you will.
My writing process is arduous, one of deep, sometimes manic, thinking and searching of the self; one that burdens the body with an impossible task of remembrance and reimagining. My artistic practice, on the other hand, is one of liberation. It is an immediate, visceral reaction to the forces working outside of the body. It is a practice of appreciation, possession, and love. It is loosening the lip of the kettle. Sometimes it is my body, which I believe to be a separate consciousness from my mind, which is speaking, in communication with the natural world, much more than “I” am. When I am looking and listening to the trees, writhing around on the floor, or floating on the rhythm of a song, I am showing some part that is hidden, that which is beyond language. These artistic reliefs are not always of my own design either. At times, the outcome is much more interesting when I am not at the helm, when I am body under orders, residing within someone else’s dream.
I include some of this work here as an offering, a more complete look.









