Jacey Coca
Artist Statement
My work is intimate and small, souvenir-ish and nostalgic. In life, I am challenged daily by old memories and the obsession of moments that no longer live. Childhood notably brings the most prevalent joys we experience in a lifetime.
Within my work, I walk along the bounds of challenging and appreciating Nostalgia. As I continue to grow into this adult body I have realized the duality of the memory. The beautification of what surrounds us can bring such joy, but it can also create unhealthy standards of what is obtainable. I investigate the intervention of memory by manipulating nostalgic archetypes, like iconic family photos, and other materials like beads, hair, the lumen printing process, and other various experimental photographic processes. I create work to gather a further understanding of the power and beautification nostalgia has over culture, memories, people, and myself.
Bio
Jacey Coca is an Arizona-based artist who recently received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, with a concentration in Photography. She graduated from Arizona State University with a cumulative 4.0 GPA.
Being a half Korean and Mexican woman, her seasoned experience with fetishization and harshness has amalgamated into a particular perspective of how the world functions. She has witnessed that people are drawn to ‘beauty’ in lovely ways, which in turn can become obsessively grotesque. Beauty’s dualistic nature inhibits acts of goodwill but also destructiveness to manifest.
Jacey Coca employs a nuance of experimental photographic practices as tools to help her expand her understanding of what beauty is and its impact amongst people. She notoriously works with mixed media, beads, polaroids, appropriated archival family images, hair, and the lumen print process. Her work mainly speaks on the power and the beautification nostalgia has over culture, memories, and people.