Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York is pleased to present Unwanted Collaborator: Fractured Landscapes, an exhibition of new mixed-media work by Jil Weinstock. In these unconventional collages and illuminated pieces, Weinstock mixes photography, plants encased in rubber, embroidery thread, and fabric to explore the fragility and resilience found in the natural world, especially when faced with disruptive forces. This fragmentation can be caused by natural elements such as erosion, tectonic activity, or climate changes, or it may result from human activities like urbanization, deforestation, or industrial development. Unwanted collaborators create the broken or disordered terrain, by imposing the hand into the landscape and creating a delicate balance between human intervention and nature’s resilience. Unwanted Collaborator: Fractured Landscapes is an invitation to reflect on the resilience that emerges when we confront, adapt, and ultimately find ourselves in collaborations we did not choose.
To create these works, Weinstock begins with photographs from her personal archive. In some works, landscape elements such as waterfalls or rainbows are multiplied, making the images seem more manufactured. Other photographs depict architectural rock formations and footprints in the earth, a contemplation on the impact travelers have on the places they visit. Commonplace bits of flowers and weeds are paired with the photographs. Weinstock gathered the plants in nature and brought them back to her Brooklyn studio, where she studied, pressed, and submerged them in rubber, a material that both preserves and binds the plants.
Treating ordinary weeds as new discoveries, Weinstock preserves them in time, just as the photographs freeze specific moments. The poured rubber creates organic, amorphous shapes that contrast with the rigid frame of the photos. The amber color evokes age, antiquity, and fossilized specimens. Embroidered elements appear in many of the works, their artificially bright colors standing in contrast to the earthy tones of the poured rubber. Each end of the embroidered shapes hangs with loosely dangling threads, which fall and flow organically.
The photographs, encased plants, and embroidery appear as seemingly disjointed elements that together, transform and adapt to create a cohesive piece. The weeds are preserved and suspended in rubber, a medium that symbolizes both constraint and protection. Thread, which is delicate yet strong, connects and mends, sewing together the dissonance and harmonizing the conflicting forces at play. Unwanted Collaborator | Fractured Landscapes is an opportunity to consider the inherent beauty within the dissonance of our environment by challenging our perceptions of harmony and discord, contemplating the fragility of our surroundings and the potential for renewal in the face of something new.
Jil Weinstock draws memories from her past to create a sense of nostalgia within her work. In her practice, rubber is used as a material to preserve, binding together objects and the memories they elicit. The common objects she focuses on are consequently transformed. Born in Los Angeles, California, she currently works and resides in New York City. She studied at the University of California Berkeley where she received her MFA and BFA. Weinstock has been an Artist in Residence at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, NY. She is the recipient of a McGarth Grant and the Walter Gropius Award. Her work has been featured in publications including The Huffington Post, Art in America, and Art News.
