In Cavum opening reception, 10/10/20.
Biography
Caitlin Servilio is a Clinton, NJ-based artist. She has a BA in Studio Art from American University and an MLIS from Rutgers University. She is currently pursuing an MFA at MICA in Baltimore, MD. She teaches art at a NJ high school while pursuing her own artistic endeavors, which include painting, drawing, and printmaking.
Statement
In my current work, elements of science fiction, dreams, and apocalyptic scenarios of climate change are paired with vignettes from my life in a small New Jersey town. I create surreal spaces that point to the trends, events, and processes of environmental dysfunction - some that are starting to work too well, happen too fast, and replicate too effectively, vs. others that don’t or can’t work, happen, or replicate as well as they used to.
I grapple with how to translate the pervasive sense of doom underlying everyday experiences - living through a global pandemic, interacting with invasive species, a car flooded by a hurricane - into a format I can come to terms with. My work often references diagrams, charts, or maps, taking tiny snapshots of the climate crisis and gaming out the actors and actions involved in a cluster or network. Borrowing from fiction, comic books, games, toys, and the pop culture of childhood, I cope with the more violent, heavy realities of climate change by seeing them through a lens of absurdism.
My work imagines a near future that gets more and more out of control, a far future that draws to a logical (or illogical) culmination, and a present infused with a preemptive nostalgia.