ABOUT

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."     

-Gustav Mahler

Statement:

I create a visual lexicon using symbolic folk and pattern languages from family histories, to talk about identity, place and time as an American of European descent. My work is informed by a Neurodivergent lens actively shaping my experience and is colored by deep observation of geometric organizing principles in nature. Speaking in knotwork, mazes, C and S strokes, spirals, symbols and color, I weave stories about organic cycles that informed traditional folk arts and how disruptions to these cycles have created glitches in the pattern. I am interested in exploring ways we might restore a sense of continuity and belonging, despite ongoing social and climatic shifts toward our unknowable future.

Bio:

Jeanine Malec is a multi-disciplinary artist working under the moniker Nest & Tessellate. She enjoyed a Minnesota-style, free-range childhood exploring the limestone bluffs of the upper St. Croix River valley. This setting was an education in ecological niches, seasonal cycles and relationship with landscape. In addition to these formative experiences in nature, she hails from a family of makers and has always been at home working with a diverse array of materials and techniques. Having subsequently spent 20 years in South Minneapolis, her work is also informed by the rich current of reclamation that has grown out of decades of community exploration into cultural rootedness around Powderhorn Park. Jeanine attended the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul and earned an MFA in Ecological Architecture from Vesper College in NE Mpls.

“Stop thinking about artworks as objects and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences”       

– Brian Eno

About the Name and Logo

The name and logo for Nest & Tessellate derive from the principles of Permaculture. They describe the ways each element in nature fits within an intelligent pattern, tessellating across 2 dimensional space and nesting within 3 dimensions. I use the name and logo as a jumping off point to talk about how both nature and culture are systems. The logo also demonstrates how folk art patterns emerge from observing and responding to our immediate landscape.