Biography
Jocelyn Meyer graduated twice from the Maryland Institute College of Art. After four years of little sleep and much artistic experimentation, she received her BFA in Painting. One year, and even less sleep later, she walked across the stage a final time with her Masters of Arts in Teaching.
For many years, Jocelyn honed her observational skills by reproducing the figure in large-scale oils. Hard as she tried, however, she could not find an honest dialogue in this canvas and oil rectangle. During a night of frustration she was forced to challenge her entire understanding of the painted figure. As she allowed rigid restrictions to fall away, she discovered that the truth exists in the very act of painting. In her layered images, the full canvas becomes the story of the individual being worked on, painfully edited, and discovered. The knife finds its way into the layers of acrylic to cut, peel, and scrape away narratives. Sometimes they are unearthed as cuneiform images that tell of specific events in history and at other times they metaphorically become the figure itself.
Most importantly, she does not see the role of the artist as a solitary expedition. She brings her experiences as an artist into the classroom setting, using art to further understanding of self, community, and faith. She has worked with children of all ages and backgrounds from spending a summer teaching art to Baltimore City homeless and transient youth, to working determinedly as a full time middle school art teacher in St. Louis, MO. She also helped create and run The Light Art Gallery and Church in downtown Baltimore and currently serves as the Jewelry Coordinator for the St. Louis faith-based organization, Forai.
Wherever she finds herself, she hopes to create spaces where the community can search, question, and discover the joy of creation. This is the same desire she holds for herself.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Scraped away to reveal.
It is about being worked on, opened and cut.
The knife can skip and unexpected moments occur :
Maybe it wasn’t what I had planned but it is better because of that.
There is only so much control I have, the rest is faith.
In this final moment, all other moments exist.
Nothing can be undone, only altered.
I am constantly being worked on and it is a painful thing. I can never escape my past, but I can hope in the present.
In this there is renewal.