Featured Artist — Jyl Bonaguro
Icarus
ARTIST STATEMENT: My artwork focuses on the concepts of industrialization, beauty and immortality. I examine and deconstruct the effects of industrialization with pre-industrial materials and techniques such as a hammer and chisel for carving stone sculpture or by mixing powder and linseed oil into oil paint.
The concepts of beauty and immortality are explored via the unadorned human figure as the universal symbol of humanity. Humanity is seen as seeking beauty to mask the struggle for survival all the while questing for immortality. The beautiful figures are purposefully fragmented with parts left unfinished in order to expose the fallacy of immortality reminiscent of sculptures recovered by archaeologists from the ruins of former civilizations. Beauty is therefore portrayed as a transient form of illusion. The quest for immortality, though actively sought by most civilizations, is nevertheless equally transitory. Civilizations rise and fall. What remains is to wonder why we create or perhaps even more essential, why are we here?
While I am a multi-media artist, my methodology is consistent. Although there may not always be material similarities between my different series and writings, they are linked by these reoccurring concepts examining humanity amidst the backdrop of my own mortality.
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- She broke her nose in the gallery — fitting for “the passage of time.”
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Jyl Bonaguro has a BA in English–creative writing from Loyola University Chicago; an Honorary Credential in sculpture and mural studies from Northeastern University of China; and has studied figure drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had numerous exhibitions of her paintings and sculpture in the Chicagoland area. Her works have been featured in local publications like CS Modern Luxury Interiors and Sheridan Road. Currently she is in the midst of a new sculpture series and is hand carving alabaster and Italian Carrara marble in her studio at Stairway Studios. Her playwriting focuses on history and women with the desire to create strong female characters that explore the nuances of male and female relationships.