Rather than using a camera to convey verisimilitude, Jada Fabrizio combines photography with mixed media to bring her off-kilter inner visions to life. Fabrizio sculpts characters, then builds, lights, and photographs sets to create “freshly minted fairy tales for adults.” Her recent “Land” series is directly influenced by the silence she experienced during the pandemic. “The world seemed an alien place,” Fabrizio says, “as if I had suddenly landed on the moon. Everything was familiar, yet drastically changed.”
Over the Moon depictys two astronauts about to embrace under a giant celestial orb while a flock of birds flies away into the horizon. The landscape, building, and vehicle indicate the American Southwest, while the spacesuits suggest another planet. Perhaps that’s Over the Moon in a nutshell—at once familiar and otherworldly.
” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”>
What’s for Dinner, Jada Fabrizio, Photograph, 13″×19″, 2019
About her process, Fabrizio says, “My materials are mostly scavenged or bought and modified with Sculptamold, plaster, carpenter’s foam, wood, and anything else I can find or make. The sets are usually three to four feet. The backgrounds are hand painted with acrylic.”
For the construction of this particular image, she made the landscape with aquarium sand mixed with glue and foam insulation, while the house is a cardboard box. “The figures are from the movie Interstellar (which I found on eBay). I am always looking for old trucks and cars at estate sales. The background is painted, the birds and Earth added digitally,” Fabrizio says.
Generally shooting with a Nikon D850 and a 105mm Macro lens, she used miniature lights and tiny reflectors with black tinfoil to mask areas for Over the Moon.
” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”>
Fabrizio prefers world building with models over straight photography. “It takes a very special skill to shoot reality in a meaningful way,” she says. “I once took a class with Mary Ellen Mark on street photography and was amazed by her skill, but felt that it was not the path for me. I like creating moments from observed reality and putting my own personal twist on it. I also enjoy the handwork involved with building things from nothing.”
As to how she comes up with her ideas, she says, “I try hard to always see things. I study people and imagine what their life is like. My stories are personal but also universal. It’s very challenging for me to figure out what the emotion will be and then, like a puzzle, figure out ways to fill the frame and build the components.”
” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”>
The Visitor, Jada Fabrizio, Photograph, 13″×19″, 2019
Fabrizio is inspired by new topographic photographers such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz “for their poetic and breathtaking work on silence in landscape” and fantastic set builders Lori Nix (featured on the November 2003 cover of Chronogram) and Kathleen Gerber, as well as Diane Arbus and Francesca Woodman “for their raw emotion and vulnerability.”
The Hudson Valley is also inspirational. Fabrizio studied creative writing at SUNY New Paltz, fell in love with poetry and art, and was married in a field in Mount Tremper. “It’s a place where I feel free and calm,” she says.
While recognizing that each person brings their own interpretation when viewing art, she says, “I hope my images somehow express collective human experiences. I am not trying to influence thought, just reflect it.”