Jodi Colella
artist + teacher
My durational handwork and fetishist focus embrace the ideals of labor, process, and community.

Realizing the complexities of vulnerability and power I interrogate areas of cultural tension—identity politics, institutionalized prejudice, corporal agency, and substance use. I use the erasure of identity as a repressive and liberating action where concealment of physicality nullifies bias and disrupts societal presuppositions based on beauty, gender, and cultural stereotypes.

Harnessing a disparate array of found objects and the power of needle and thread I utilize materiality’s aesthetic and technical possibilities to effect societal change.

Jodi Colella exhibits and teaches internationally. She is a member of Boston Sculptors Gallery and the recipient of a 2019 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship Award for Sculpture.

Jodi’s exhibitions include The Textile Museum in Washington D.C.; Textile Center, Minneapolis; Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton; World of Threads, Toronto; and Da Wang Culture Highland in Shenzhen China among others. She has collaborated on several public art projects, and her work is held in multiple museum collections. Recently interviewed for WGBH’s Open Studio with Jared Bowen, her work has featured in The Boston Globe, Surface Design Journal, The Woven Tale Press, Vasari 21, Artistry in Fiber, POSIT and TextileArtist.org.
S E L E C T E D S H O W S

2020 Faculty of Utterance Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston MA Full Circle Public Interactive Cary Memorial Library, Lexington MA
Obstructed View Piper Gallery Cary Memorial Library, Lexington MA
2018 Loom Large Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston MA
Unidentified Women Form + Concept, Santa Fe NM Twisted, Twined and Woven Cahoon Museum of American Art, Cotuit MA 2019 Human Impact: Stories of the Opioid Epidemic Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton MA Dressed Danforth Art, Framingham MA Look This Way Cahoon Museum of American Art, Cotuit MA
2017 Unidentified Woman Historic Northampton Museum, Northampton MA
2016 Beastiary Chandler Gallery, Maud Morgan Arts, Cambridge MA Intimacy+Materiality Helen Day Art Center, Stowe VT Own Your Piece/Peace Collaborative school wide installation for community event, Needham H.S., Needham MA 2015 WHACK! Pop-Up exhibition in Beacon Hill, Boston MA 2014 November Works Da Wang Culture Highland, Shenzhen China
Unraveled Museums of Old York, York ME
High Fiber Conrad-Wilde Gallery, Tuscon AZ Over and Under: Weaving Together the Fabric of Our Community Wheaton College, Norton MA 2013 The Order of the Universe Beard Gallery, Wheaton College, Norfolk MA
A Room of Our Own Concord Art Association, Concord, MA 2011 GREEN: the Color and the Cause International exhibition, Textile Museum, Washington D.C.
R E S I D E N C I E S / A W A R D S

2019 Mass Cultural Council Fellowship Award for Sculpture Boston, MA Haystack Mountain School of Craft Open Studio Residency 2019, Deer Isle ME
2018 Society for Arts + Crafts Artist-in-Residence Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019, Boston MA Visual Artist Fellowship Award 2018, 2015, 2012 Somerville Arts Council, Somerville MA
2016 Fay Chandler Emerging Artist City of Boston Council on the Arts, Boston MA Compeung Art Residency Doi Saket, Thailand
2015 Weir Farm Art Center Artist Residency, Weir Farm National Park, Wilton CT
2014 Da Wang Cultural Highland Artist Residency, Shenzhen China
2013 Fruitlands Museum Artist-in-Residence, Harvard MA
Vermont Studio Center Pollack-Krasner Fellowship Award, Johnson VT

P R O F E S S I O N A L / S P E A K I N G

2020 Gallery Talk on Yayoi Kusama Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA
Craft Chat Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton MA
Sparks Fly! Lexington Arts & Crafts Society Inspire Series, Lexington MA
2019 Symposium on the Opioid Epidemic Stonehill College, Easton MA
2018 Material + Process Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA
FiberLAB Founder of a studio mentoring and instruction program for working fiber artists 2015-present Stitching Nature and Culture Workshop Center for the Arts, Skopelos Greece Workshop Faculty Eliot School Jamaica Plain, Boston MA, ongoing Governors Institute on the Arts Faculty, summer arts program, Governors Institutes of Vermont, Castleton VT Unabridged resume including Press/Bibliography


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