NADA Curated by Daonne Huff

During the pandemic, Jessica Labatte moved her studio from the basement into the entire house, transforming simple everyday materials into imaginative still lifes, sculptures, and abstractions, erasing the boundaries between high and low creative expression in both material and authorship using snow, flowers, chenille stems, ice, feathers, construction paper, polymer clay, and pompoms to experiment, play, and create together.

In her Parallel Play series she embraced the debris-covered zone of an artistic/domestic space with easily accessible shelves of construction paper, chenille stems, pompons, popsicle sticks, glitter, and glue, encouraging engagement in open-ended play, fostering imagination and exploration. The unexpected sculptural combinations were created entirely by her oldest child and Labatte acted solely as the photographer as she would collect the best of them and photograph them in her studio.