Aug 25

Jaina Cipriano

Jaina Cipriano is a photographer, filmmaker, set designer, installation artist, and writer who has exhibited extensively across the United States and especially in the Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area. Recent solo exhibitions in the Boston area include features at Cambridge Art Association, Laconia Gallery, Boston University, Beacon Street Gallery, and The Station. Jaina has also exhibited internationally in Japan, Greece, and Italy. She has been thoroughly published in a little under 200 publications to date including recent features such as Girlhood Magazine, Authority Magazine, Quinobequin Review, Shutterhub and several critical articles by The Phoblographer. Serving as a juror, panelist, and board member, Jaina has worked with several awards and institutions such as the Arlington International Film Festival, Suffolk University, and Somerville LLC Inter Media & Film Grant. Jaina is also the founder and owner of Finding Bright Studios, a company specializing in set design for music videos sets and other media and private venues.

The audience should note that none of the photography uses photoshop or any other means of photographic manipulation as all the photographs depict real scenes and theatrical sets hand crafted by Jaina herself. Much of the recent work deals with the reflections of Jaina’s background growing up in a socially-isolating religious cult. There remain themes of isolation, entrapment, stagnation, and vulnerability and her work typically portrays self-portraiture in elaborate, imaginative scenes with grand theatrics evoking emotions of mania, depression, and anxiety. She uses direct spotlights and dramatic shadows to create a sense of tension and suspense in the photography.

These deeply psychological photographs range in depiction of being isolated in dreary constructed forests, confident portrayals on elaborate lighted stages, and being ensnared inside staged sets such as a giant eyeball and miniature interior. Jaina uses props such as giant scissors, wooden swords, stuffed animals, and assembled food to create scenes of absurdity and hallucinogenic environments. These photographs are designed to be imaginative rather than a direct reflection of reality, often based in metaphor, allegory, and symbolism reflecting trauma. With a sense of playful darkness, Jaina creates compounded environments and scenarios which harkons on our collective sense of unfamiliarity and being cast into situations outside our comfort zones.

Power Prayer (pictured above) represents one of Jaina’s darkest works. While many of her photographs may reflect absurdity or melancholiness, Power Prayer on the other hand almost seems like a hallucination based on her personal past. The manic depiction portrays Jaina as a dark figure covered in a blood-red light holding a wooden sword modeled in a pose reminiscent of religious scenery from renaissance paintings. Perhaps a reflection on the darker side of religion or a portrayal of violent and angry righteousness.

Jaina Cipriano can be described as an artist who digs deeper into the inner self-conscious to study our profound desires, fears, and vulnerabilities. With elaborate theatrics, enveloping darkness, and dramatic lighting, she explores contemporary notions of personal identity in regards to how individuals deal with the past, present, and future. Her art contains a sense of rawness and exposition of grand theatre on an elaborate and meticulously constructed scale through unique and dreamlike set design. Whether through imaginative colors or monochromatic depictions, Jaina is a master of atmospheric tension, creating both serene and nightmarish scenarios depicting the complex nature of the human experience in regards to memory and fleeting moments.