JESSICA HALONEN – RX GARDEN

JESSICA HALONEN
RX GARDEN

Sep 3 – Oct 24, 2009

Art Palace gallery is pleased to present Rx Garden, a solo exhibition by Austin-based artist Jessica Halonen. Jessica’s recent work is interested in the relationships between the body, nature and medical world.
Rx Garden explores the issues surrounding the use of genetically modified plants in the pharmaceutical industry. It includes a series of gouache on paper portraits of plant-based drugs, as well as sculptures inspired by biopharming (a process that uses genetic modification to ‘grow’ chemical components, including human proteins, in plants that are harvested to make drugs). The drawings borrow from botanical illustrations, infusing their once sterile forms with a sense of playfulness and animation. In the sculpture, colorful synthetic materials are introduced to found organic objects.
Thank you to the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and Artpace for their generous support in the creation of this body of work.

About the Artist:
Jessica Halonen received a MFA in Painting in 1999 from Washington University in Saint Louis and a BA from Kalamazoo College. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, notably at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Park Project in Los Angeles, the University of Texas in Dallas and San Antonio, and the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and The Museum of Southeast Texas. From 2000-2001, she was a Core Fellow at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and was recently an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire.  Halonen is an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Trinity University.  She lives and works in both Austin and San Antonio.