Jeffu Warmouth | Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes

Jeffu Warmouth: Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes

Jeffu Warmouth: Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes
October 5 - November 6, 2022

Solo exhibition at Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

SOWA First Friday Receptions
October 7, 5 - 8:30pm
November 4, 5 - 8:30pm

Artist's Talk
Sunday, October 16, 3 - 5pm

Artist Meet & Greets
October 7, 14, and 21, 11 - 5pm

Gallery Hours
Wednesday - Sunday, 11 - 5pm

Press Release (pdf)
Exhibition Checklist (pdf)

Jeffu Warmouth: Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes, 2022, solo exhibition at Boston Sculptors Gallery

Jeffu Warmouth's Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes, his second solo exhibition at Boston Sculptors Gallery, features sculptures, drawings, and animations. Warmouth builds upon his signature brand of comic, surreal conceptualism to explore the human condition. Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes delves into interaction and introspection, pattern and code, paradox and play.

Stamp Sketches embody Warmouth's fascination with print, code, and animation. The artist created works on paper by stamping inked wooden blocks, rubber toys, and other household objects. He then wrote custom software to create digital animations from the stamped elements.

Stomp Boxes are sculptures built using diverse processes including life casting, woodworking, and sewn inflatables. In these works, the artist explores his human body and psyche through minimalism and absurd humor.

Jeffu Model Kit is a portrait of the artist as a life-sized toy to be assembled. This work is a collaboration with artist Ellen Wetmore, who created the clay model of Warmouth's head.

Jeffu Warmouth has shown internationally at venues including the Boston Convention Center, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Fitchburg Art Museum, and 404 Festival of Art & Technology. He holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MFA from SMFA at Tufts, and is a Professor at Fitchburg State University. He joined Boston Sculptors Gallery in 2018. His 2019 solo exhibition Urgent Blowout featured his own giant inflatable head.

Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes runs concurrently with Mags Harries' exhibition What She Carries.

Jeffu Warmouth: Stamp Sketches & Stomp Boxes, installation view, 2022

Jeffu Warmouth & Ellen Wetmore, Jeffu Model Kit (installation view), 2022, PVC, urethane & epoxy resins, paint, 76 x 72 x 15 inches

Honk Box #1, 2022, wood, concrete, plastic, 14 x 12 x 15 inches

The Head Makes the Man (installation view), 2022, wood, fabric, plaster, 36 x 33 x 15 inches

Vultures, Vultures Everywhere (installation view), 2022, wood, metal, plastic, video, 22 x 22 x 10 inches

Time to Inflate (installation view), 2022, bicycle pump, wood, fabric, 22 x 40 x 20 inches

A good plan needs a solid foundation (installation view), 2022, wood, concrete, plaster, saw, 28 x 20 x 18 inches

All Roads Lead to Rome (installation view), 2022, wood, concrete, 56 x 48 x 48 inches

Mark Maker (installation view), 2022, wood, concrete, silicone, ink, 35 x 13 x 15 inches

StampSketches (installation view), 2022, ink on paper

Who Will Save Us From Ourselves? (installation view), 2022, wood, rubber, 24 x 16 x 4 inches

StampSketches (installation view), 2022, ink on paper

Gooseneck Grimace, 2022, wood, vinyl, 12 x 5 x 5 inches

Twin Stance Block, 2021, wood, vinyl, 4.5 x 13 x 3 inches

Handhold, 2022, wood, vinyl, 10 x 4 x 4 inches

Offshoot, 2021, wood, vinyl, 18 x 4 x 4 inches

In the Artist's Words

This exhibition represents work & ideas over the past 6-7 years. In 2015, I did a residency at the American Academy in Rome, where I began drawing surreal images featuring hands, eyes, and heads on branches and twisting tubes. They weren't connected directly to other work I was creating, but the cartoonish dissociations and grotesque transformations of iconic body parts seemed related to ideas about our struggles to be human. Some of these were the original sketches of All Roads Lead to Rome and Vultures, Vultures Everywhere. I began exploring life casting as a way to bring the ideas to human scale, and creating small sculptural models to test ideas, all of which led to the various sculptures in the show.

I also began working with inked stamps to create works on paper. This was an amazing way to stay creative during busy teaching semesters, and this work led to the StampSketch project. As I saw the sketches evolve, I really wanted them to animate, so I wrote custom software (using the Processing framework) to allow me to digitally draw sketches using stamped elements that I had scanned and prepared. While drawing, the software exports animated frames reminiscent of stop-motion or hand-drawn animated films. You can see the resulting video here: StampSketch video

Jeffu Model Kit is probably the oldest concept in the show, even though it's one of the newest works. It is most closely connected with my previous work, such as JeffuBurger and SuperJEFFUMarket, that investigates our identity in the consumer age. The idea of a Jeffu model on sprues, reminiscent of the plastic model kits many of us built as kids, has been floating around my sketchbooks for at least ten years. With the encouragement of my wife, artist Ellen Wetmore, we created it as a collaborative work. When I first considered it, I assumed that I would life-cast everything, including my head. After several tests, we realized that it would be more effective to have Ellen create a life-sized sculpture of my head out of clay. The other body parts are either life-cast or kitbashed from mannequin parts, and everything is attached to furniture-grade PVC & coated in Krylon fusion. If only there were a giant tube of plastic cement to inhale while assembling the artist.