Janelle Iglesias is a second generation Norwegian-Dominican, Queens, NY native. She received a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Emory University and her MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University where she was awarded a thesis/dissertation fellowship for her final year. A 2008 Urban Artist Initiative Fellow, Janelle has been an artist in residence at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE and Sculpture Space, Utica, NY. When in Queens, she shares a studio in with her sister, Lisa Iglesias, with whom she collaborates as Las Hermanas Iglesias. In 2008-09 Las Hermanas were artists in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, through LMCC’s Paris Residency Program.

I trace much of my creative impulse back to my parentage- my work is influenced by Scandinavian folk traditions/ modern design as well as the rasquache of the Latin world- an approach that makes the most from the least. I don’t see these influences as antithetical to each other; in fact I’m most interested in their possible intersections and fusions. While my work is grounded in an exploration of organic/natural forms and natural phenomena, my practice is a defiant and inventive resourcefulness of means.

While I work in a variety of media, my recent projects include large scale sculptural installations pieced together from materials found in the neighborhoods where they are built. Through collecting, arranging and manipulating the everyday I create new micro-environments inspired by animal architecture and human contraptions. I see my work as an extension of magical realism-combining what one might simultaneously call fantastic, ordinary, natural and domestic.