Vandana Jain

Bio
Vandana Jain is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. She studied studio art and art history at New York University and textile design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her recent awards include the LMCC Workspace Residency and the 2007 Emerging Artists’ Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park. She has shown at a variety of venues, including Toronto Free Gallery, the Queens Museum, ABC No Rio, Momenta, and the Soap Factory. Her work was recently included in the 798 Biennial in Beijing. www.artcodex.org/vandana_jain

Artist Statement
My work parses the corporate symbols that surround us. Ostensibly meant to serve as brand markers so we can distinguish between different producers of the same goods, these symbols have the potential to reveal so much more about our inner desires.

In Lexicon (Eagles), I have selected company
logos that use a raptor as their symbol. From the Nietzschean eagle within the eagle logo of the Little Eagle Preschool, to the naturalistic Golden Eagle Insurance Corporation, to the predatory Eagle Sign and Advertising Company, we see the range of expression possible with this one symbol. And as these logos are primarily taken from American companies, they become a metaphor for the various ways we see this country.

Protest Flags utilizes logos in an entirely different way. For this work, I have collected various healthcare, pharmaceutical, and charity logos, particularly ones that utilized heart, hand, or person imagery, and arranged them into a meta-icon. Using the format of Tibetan prayer flags as a basis, I have surrounded this meta-icon with protest slogans advocating for health care reform. This juxtaposition points to the problem of instituting health care reform in an environment dominated by corporations that stand to benefit from its failure.

Work Details:
Protest Flags
Installation
Dimensions variable
2009

Lexicon (Eagles)
Casein on wood
22″ x 38.5″ x .75″
2009