Jill Slosburg-Ackerman

Lives and works in Somerville, MA, USA

Artist statement

ABOUT MY WORK The whole of my studio is a site where disparate forms become an ensemble. Now there are small-scale wall and tabletop works; jewelry; furniture for walking mourners, and a boxed collection of wood scraps that remain from carving projects. These works grow from and refer to each other, reflecting the studio as a place of non-literary interwoven interactions, where addition and subtraction are in dialogue, where one thing lets another make sense. Drawing is central to my practice. I like knowing that this word (drawing) is a gerund—both noun and verb—because it represents a meaningful convergence of action and object. The "eye of my pencil" (Bridget Riley) guides me as I make observational studies and overlays, essential components in ensembles that display process, nature, bodies, cloth, adornment, and systems. I choose to work with wood because it is its own subject. It embodies the bifurcated condition of belonging to nature and the constructed world. Wood is uncannily alive and dead. Its grain and markings are nature's drawings, with the possibility to be combined with the things that I make. And, it is a haptic pleasure to work with this material. Jill Slosburg-Ackerman 2026

Artwork