Jodi Colella

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 has exhibited at venues including: The Textile Museum, 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.

Artist Statement

My durational handwork and fetishist focus embrace the ideals of labor, process, and community. There is a presence of the maker in the shape of thousands of stitches, hand-wrought forms and, as in my collaboratives, the orchestrated actions of many. Found objects – the everyday and invisible – are reworked and repurposed, and placed on a pedestal for scrutiny where the psychological is made physical in the way that one form materializes from another. 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. Influenced by travel, I draw from historical and cultural experiences that extend from my neighborhood to time spent in the Far East and many places in between. Recent work investigates the complex, often entangled qualities of power, emergence and fear – particularly the forces that have historically shaped women's identities and place in society.