For our summer 2023 exhibition As Luck Would Have It, we put out an open call for artists to submit work that addressed the theme of luck and its numerous iterations. Some artists submitted proposals for new work to be completed specifically for the show; one such artist was Jaina Cipriano, a photographer and filmmaker who stages her photographs in elaborate built environments. Cipriano’s three photographs in As Luck Would Have It address the role that luck and ritual play in the experience of obsessive compulsive disorder. Read more from her proposal and see the images she created for our exhibition below.
Jaina Cipriano, You Get to Make the Choice, photograph in built environment
Luck and ritual play an unfortunate part in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - these photos explore playful motifs of luck mixed with the shame and isolation that comes from OCD rituals. OCD, for me, stems from the inability to let go of control. I often feel that nothing I do will ever be enough to save me - unless I do just the right things, in just the right order then I will not have to face whatever it is I am afraid of.
[You Get to Make the Choice is a] self portrait in a wall of stuffed animals - hidden amongst the carnival prizes that folks are trying to win. Bright, colorful with bold, dramatic lighting - reminiscent of childhood fears and wants.
Jaina Cipriano, It Is Out of My Control, photograph in built environment
Jaina Cipriano, How Much Is Real, photograph in built environment
Jaina Cipriano is a Lowell-based artist communicating with the world through photography, film and installation. Her works explore the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment. Cipriano creates her photographs in built sets, forgoing digital manipulation because she believes creating something truly immersive starts with the smallest details. A self-taught carpenter, she loves a challenge and her larger than life sets draw inspiration from the picture books and cartoons of her childhood.
Cipiano writes and directs short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. In 2020 she released You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon, a surrealist horror film wrestling with the gravity of deep codependency. Her second short, Trauma Bond, is a dreamy coming-of-age thriller currently in the festival circuit.
Working with many local organizations to support and strengthen the community, Cipriano was a judge for The Arlington International Film Festival, dispersed funds for the inter-media portion of the Somerville Arts Council Grant Board, built sets for Arlington Friends of the Drama and served on the board of the New England Sculptors Association. Cipriano is also the founder of Finding Bright Studios - a design service company that translates ideas into visuals, working in set design for film, music videos and immersive spaces.
Cipriano studied at The New England School of Photography and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions around New England. She is currently a Boston Fellow at Mass Art’s Creative Economy Business Incubator and Merrimack Valley’s E for All Accelerator program.