Jonathan Latiano

GAR Environmental/Installation Artist: Jonathan Latiano
September 2022

Bringing artists from around the world, the Goetemann Artist Residency Program has long been a staple of the Rocky Neck Art Colony. In reaction to Covid, it was decided to run a limited program in 2022, hosting only the Distinguished Artist/Teacher in August and the Environmental Installation Artist in September.

Jonathan Latiano (born 1982) received his BA in Studio Art from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Interdisciplinary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Jonathan’s artistic practice is rooted in the study of time, the natural sciences, and the viewer’s own spatial awareness within the immersive installations he creates. His artwork has been exhibited in numerous solo and group public art exhibitions in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and London, and his work has been featured in local, national, and international art publications. Jonathan was the recipient of the 2013 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize in Art, Moravian College’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and the Bunting Teaching Fellowship in Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Jonathan resides and works in Somerville, Massachusetts, and serves as the Director of the Art and Art History program at Merrimack College.

Watch this video of Jonathan for a preview of his work and ideas.

From Jonathan Latiano’s Artist Statement: 

From an early age, I have been both captivated and unnerved by the complexity and scope of our natural world. This fascination has shaped my artistic practice, which centers around the perception of time, space, and scale, and our ability to abstractly place ourselves within the larger universe around us.

I am drawn to how our relatively short life spans affect the way we perceive time, and how the context of the present shapes how we interpret the past and predict the future. Environmentalism, ecology, and the natural sciences are a constant in my work, and fields such as geology, taxonomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology, are commonly employed as catalysts in my practice. My artwork weaves between science-fact and science-fiction, alluding to the more elusive qualities of our environment, and our own uncertain future on this planet.

My installations explore labor, impermanence, and fragility. Site‐responsiveness and architectural-integration are vital to my practice, appropriating the pre-existing structure of the site as part of the artwork. I strategically focus on the physical boundaries of my artwork, challenging the lines between where the art ends and the exhibition space begins. The act of building is central to both the final work and my creative process, and much of my artistic practice is dedicated to methodic material manipulation.

Although my artwork requires a large physical presence in its construction, conceptually, the works hinge on fragility and impermanence. The life cycles of my individual works have become crucial to my practice. The art exists for the duration of its exhibition, and then it does not. There is an unsettling bite to that impermanence, but also intense weight and beauty.

The element that attracted me most to the Goetemann Artist Residency is the community of artists that the program hosts. I moved to Massachusetts in 2018, and over the past 4 years, I have purposely sought out New England-based communities of dedicated artists and thinkers. In addition to this, I believe that the ecological and geological environment of the North Shore, the program’s dedication to environmental/installation art, and its partnership with the Ocean Alliance all serve my artistic practice in uniquely ideal ways.

During my time at the Goetemann Artist Residency, I plan to spend my time working on drawings, workshopping new and existing ideas for projects, and engaging in dialogue with other members of the residency and the Gloucester arts community. If the opportunity presented itself, I would also ideally create a site-responsive installation in the surrounding area.