JeanElle Hoopes

JeanElle Hoopes

The End

“The End” is an elaborate installation project created by collaborating artists. There is one beginning room, and from there the viewer must choose one of three paths. Each path is created by a different team of artists and features an entirely different aesthetic and narrative. In the end, all paths meet up again in the same final place. Each path begins and ends the same, though the middle is different. “The End” shows how dramatically different a story can be seen when viewed through different contexts or versions of it.

Image: "An End." Made with Twine

Artist Statement

I make short stop motion animation works that emphasize the physical qualities of the materials I’m using. The materials are easily manipulated and often messy (clay, paint, loose paper, charcoal) and, contrary to traditional animation, the narrative or story is minimally planned. I work intuitively, starting with a theme, feeling, or idea which solidifies and evolves as I produce the labor-intensive work.

I use familiar but uncomfortable imagery, such as disembodied body parts and organs, that are stylized and abstracted. My emphasis on malleable materials and the body provokes questions around fragility and entropy. I often warp or destroy the materials as it calls attention to the impermanence of our bodies and the world around us. The discomfort I emphasize is simulated gore intended to present the idea of the realness of our own decay, but through the lens of more everyday materials that we ourselves work with and manipulate.

Artist Bio

JeanElle Hoopes is from Wyoming, US, and is an animator and interdisciplinary artist currently studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for their BFA. Their work primarily concerns the process of entropy, using both the concepts and material realities of destruction and the end of life. Their practice is materially based, emphasizing the attributes of the mediums used, utilizing intuitive motions specific to the mediums being used. As a fan of horror, much of their work includes discomforting imagery and movement with the goal of unsettling the viewer.