veronica dejesus
Memories are an important source of ideas for my work.  
The circumstances of my childhood and early adulthood were transient, provisional, and often precarious.
  To live tenuously is to learn something about how the world works.  Perspectives from that time often act as a 
filter through which I can apprehend more recent interests and observations.  Transactions of all kinds, both public 
and personal (and especially those that fall somewhere in-between), fascinate me.  Depictions of the heroic, the 
prosperous, and the secure in popular culture, of the sort found on television, and in comic books, magazines, 
sports, and film, are often catalysts for my work.  They are the promises that our culture makes to its members. 
Hierarchies of position and power, conceptions of the family, and the dynamics of inclusion also interest me.  
I am drawn to the exchanges that occur between our material economy and the hidden economies of love and acceptance.

Drawing is the core of my practice.  My relationship with it dates back—and is fundamentally bound—to my earliest
 childhood memories.  It is the most natural, intuitive medium in which to examine my past and the world around me. 
 I believe that drawing encompasses much more than traditional definitions allow.  Line is a visionary tool. 
 A line creates a distinction.  It delimits space and thereby defines the boundaries of ideas.  I experiment by
 hanging work from the ceiling and by cutting and pasting shapes.  Intricate ink work is incorporated into most
 of my drawings.  Because my work is often personal, I try to allow the process—the relationship between myself,
 my tools, my hand and what I have chosen to portray—to guide my work, rather than attempting to transcribe some 
preconception of how the work should be.  I do not erase, or correct other sorts of errors.  I make a piece of art
 once, and when I have finished I am done.  Each work aspires to be a true and complete record of the process that
 created it.  I have discovered that “mistakes” are often more substantial and expressive (and also more honest and 
revealing) than more “correct” or “polished” work.  I often use thick paper material such as foam board, cardboard,
 heavy 400lb Arches watercolor paper, as well as an array of nonstandard and found materials (fabric, stones, thread,
 packing material etc).  I use them because they are beautiful, but also because they relate intuitively to my concerns as an artist.

I am always attempting to understand how our lives function on a daily basis and how our emotional and financial
 circumstances affect our place in the world and the decisions that we make.