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Jaz Harold’s Unsettling, Body-Bending Sculptures

Jaz Harold, a multidisciplinary artist based in New York and Tokyo, creates sculptures that mix the alluring with the unsettling. These works seem to treat the human body like a fungus, growing and duplicating itself and occasionally, behaving in a parasitic manner. The artist says her work “explores the connection between the ego, feminism, sexuality, and the flow of both inter- and intra-personal energy.”

Jaz Harold, a multidisciplinary artist based in New York and Tokyo, creates sculptures that mix the alluring with the unsettling. These works seem to treat the human body like a fungus, growing and duplicating itself and occasionally, behaving in a parasitic manner. The artist says her work “explores the connection between the ego, feminism, sexuality, and the flow of both inter- and intra-personal energy.”

A statement adds to this thought: “Recent pieces have been soft and inviting, rich with plush fabrics, yarns, and pastel hues,” Harold says. “Her use of flower motifs connect the ideas of growth, femininity, sexuality, and love; while the repeated use of crystals represent growth within energy flows. Using an aesthetic that consciously appeals to child-like naïveté, Jaz’s work softens the emphasis on the ego, ritual, intimacy, and stigma that society generally attaches to sex.”

The artist has shown her work across the world, from Osaka to Portland. She is currently part of the show “Growth” at usagi in New York, which also features work by Dan Lam and Yunjung Kang.

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