J.R Uretsky
Visiting Artist Presentation
Thursday, November 1, 2018, 3:30pm
Artist Presentation – Storrs Campus, Art Building, Room 222
J.R. Uretsky weaves performance, video, puppetry, and sculpture into emotionally charged, affective artworks that shift seamlessly between autobiography and fiction. Uretsky’s work confronts viewers with expressive confessions that test the bounds of comfort, personal space, and acceptable presence. The characters that emerge through her performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific, forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant.
J.R. Uretsky curates independently and is a performing artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues in New York, Los Angeles, Finland, and Germany. Her work was included in the 2013 DeCordova Biennial at The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She has also performed and exhibited at Art Basel Miami, FL, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design Museum as well as the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Uretsky’s work has been published in print, online and video journals such as Headmaster Magazine, Gaga Stigmata, Big Red & Shiny, and ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art.
The Aggressive Love Project (2011-2013) featured in 2013 deCordova Biennial, curated by Lexi Lee Sullivan, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA—a series of video documentations and sculptures from site-specific performances—explores the darker side of generosity through acts of invasive gift-giving.
Bromance was a performance that used puppetry and video to showcase white, male anxiety through interviews with men. I relocated interviewee’s stories from their white, male bodies to a strange, non-gendered object. Bringing the “Bro” into a conflicted body that is queer because of its multiplicity, fluidity, and failure.
Feeling Feeling a collaborative exhibition by Emmy Bright & J.R. Uretsky showed at the Distillery Gallery in Boston from September 8 – October 14, 2017
Feeling Feeling: a series of dubious choices, earnest efforts, collaborative installations, missed opportunities and new works on paper, wall, and in time.