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Jeff Gipe's artistic practice explores the intersections of ecological violence and systemic injustice. His connection to the subject stems from his upbringing near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, where his father was employed, and from working next to one of the most polluted waterways in the nation, Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. He is the director of Half-Life of Memory, the creator of the Cold War Horse and Mucky’s Return monuments, and a contributor to the book Doom With A View. Beyond his own artistic practice, Gipe engages in public discourse and curates exhibits that challenge audiences to confront the complex realities of environmental and social inequities. Gipe's artwork has been exhibited around the world and has been featured in prominent publications such as The Guardian, Huffington Post, Observer, and Scientific American. Educationally, Gipe holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver and a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York Academy of Art.
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Frightening and deeply meaningful. Brecht poem changing a wheel. Why am I anxious…etc. with the invention of conveyor belts and mass production an
artificial hand in infinite perspective and the wheel that’s constantly there. Remembering Fords questionable politics. All of this has a sinister edge that is unnerving. These things brought civilization but brought all these other things that remain hidden in the background. Embedded in our culture in the joy of our culture are the ghosts of bloody hands. -Vincent Desiderio Jeff Gipe's untitled fresco—a sort of relief mural—is made of steel wool, a medium I've never before encountered. Its grayness and grittiness are eloquently melancholy. The mother and male child—he's attached to her, but standing in our space, adding to the relief " ;thrust" of the work—belong to the past, suggesting that the work is a kind of screen memory. The steel wool, woven together like gestural strands, is memorable in itself, "backing up" the ghostly, shadowy figures—the steel wool is in effect the substance of shadow—with its atmospheric density. -Donald Kuspit
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