J.C. Verna

Jacquelene Cristina Verna is an Argentine-American interdisciplinary artist focusing on the North American separation of death in the 70s and its relationship with the Latin American political turmoil and atrocities of the same time period.

Jacquelene Cristina Verna’s work is heavily research based and concerns a historical relationship and convergence between North and South America during a time of the US’ political funding of right-wing parties, military coups and the Dirty War of Argentina. While death, kidnappings, and torture became a reality for many Latin American countries in the late 60s and early 70s, the United States experienced a separation from death; with people passing away outside of the home—in hospitals—rising popularity of cremation, and the mass-production of headstones. Following the Golden Age of US capitalism, automobiles, plastic commodities, and commercialized goods became less personalized and the rise of popular culture aided in further polarizing the two sheltered hemispheres. Previously one of the top seven wealthiest countries, Argentina regressed into a state of underdevelopment in the 1970s—stifling its progression beyond the time period.

Through means of craftsmanship and machine-like production, Verna creates functional commodities that may be seemingly mass produced and marketed in an alternate fictional reality, calling upon kitsch, working class culture and nostalgia. Heavily inspired by Latin American conceptual artists of the time period, Verna aims to reference and critique the symbols, ideas and means of production of the early conceptual movement—through varying degrees of difference and separation—in the educational environment of a gallery space.

www.jcverna.art | @jcverna.art | Artist Statement Video


Some people have high susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques…
Jacquelene Cristina Verna
2018-2019
Oil on canvas
30”h x 40”w x 1 1/4”d

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