Artist Statement

My work uses sculpture, installation, and performance to explore trauma, addiction, grief, and the ongoing work of healing. I am interested in how these experiences live in the body and in everyday objects - how they shape the way we relate to ourselves, to each other, and to the world around us.

I often make large scale, brightly colored sculptures that feel playful or familiar at first. I use surfaces that are enticing - glossy, humorous, exaggerated - to create an unexpected entry point into the topics I am exploring. Beneath the initial encounter, my work holds heavier concepts: dependency, loss, ritual, and raw emotion. I am interested in the tension between what is seen and what is carried.

My practice is also informed by Jewish rituals and ideas of collective memory and mourning. I see rituals not as something fixed, but as something that can be continuously reimagined, especially in the context of trauma and loss.

A large part of my work involves collecting - both physical objects and photographic moments. These collections encapsulate specific periods of time in my life, which I then translate into sculptural and installation forms.

I approach my studio practice as a space to process and translate lived experience. Through both research and lived experience, I use my work to engage with subjects that are often kept private or stigmatized. I aim to create work that invites connection, discomfort, recognition, and humor. While I am not trying to resolve these experiences, I am interested in making them visible and creating space where they can be held, shared, and recognized.

Bio

Jenna Billian (b. 1985) is a sculptor whose work explores the intersection of trauma, addiction, and escape. She received her BA in Studio Art from Framingham State University in 2022, where she studied sculpture.

Billian has exhibited widely, including in the Fitchburg Art Museum’s 87th Regional Exhibition, where she was awarded the Craft Prize, and the Danforth Art Museum’s Annual Juried Show, where she received the Emerging Artist Award. She has been awarded several artist grants and had her first solo exhibition at the Danforth Art Museum in September 2023.

Her work is held in permanent museum and private collections. She has also completed multiple public art commissions and painted murals throughout Massachusetts.

She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park.