Jodie Mack’s Ultraviolet is the culmination of a body of work (collage, 16mm and digital animation, and pre-cinematic optical toys) that glows under blacklight, emanating from a fascination with natural and synthetic applications of UV light. Mack’s Ultraviolet encounters the subjects of mourning and the unseen. Falling somewhere between psychedelic posters and neon stained glass windows, each quilt mourns a loved one who dealt with addiction before their death. Made during a time of unfathomable loss (2020-24), the flat quilts and screens seek impossible comfort.  

 

From fluorescent rocks in Franklin, New Jersey to the glow décor of aesthetics of Party City, Ultraviolet unites Mack’s previous work in posters and textiles with her ongoing sublimation of art and craft.The patterning of collages echo the [de]formation of habit, central to the experience of addiction, not just to substance but labor itself. The repetition of the circular discs (phenakistoscopes) and looping animations relapse on repeat. Unearthed from a basement, the still works are made from materials (scrap Masonite; painted neon poster board stenciled with heating grates; salad spinners; pieces of lace; plant trays; inherited tools) that cite domesticity and, in turn, provide the basis for “animation”: a bringing to life. Intricately unifying the foundational, cinematic elements of light, color, and motion, the moving images are exuberant yet mournful in pace, animating life and also grief. Their color profiles mismatch the initial subjects, establishing a nuanced relationship between glow-in-the-dark, neon, and fluorescent entities within analog and computational photography, printmaking, and digital imagery. A collision of the real and replica, illuminated by blacklight, Ultraviolet reveals the vast unseen complexities of the human experience, what is invisible to the sun.