Joce Leo

Joce Leo (any pronouns) is an MFA student at Maine College of Art and Design, and graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Visual Arts and Psychology from Roger Williams University in 2023. Joce is passionate about creating consenual spaces for sexual violence survivors and psychiatric abuse survivors to collectively share their pain. Joce’s artistic practice is informed by abolition-centered, non-carceral practices.

My art practice is rooted in the evaluation of complicity in harm and simultaneously practicing radical love and care. how do we distance ourselves from our western ideals of “individualism”, “independence” and “professionalism” and truly hold people through their suffering? how do we choose who deserves to take up space? how do we define justice? is there truly such a thing? how do incarceration and institutionalization change our perceptions of what “care” is? how do we believe in autonomy again in the aftermath of sexual violence? i make work to evaluate these questions.

photography is at the core of my work, and i move across film and video, book arts, sculpture, and performance. i don’t find my work to be autobiographical or diaristic even though i often use self-portraiture and my story in my work. i think of this as a reference point; an entry point for others. i seek to make my body and story a placeholder for other people’s bodies and stories to enable dialogue. i want people to have consensual, uncomfortable conversations. i want to create a space within my work that the viewer can evaluate their own relationships to other people’s pain.

i explore destructive processes such as tearing, collage, stitching and embroidery, chemicals, and performance to investigate relationships to physical touch and intimacy. i often project image and video onto the human body to discuss violation of the human form. i move between digital processes and tactile processes to encapsulate my juxtaposed lived experiences of surviving sexual violence, eating disorders, and coercive psychiatric incarceration while also wanting to believe in the radical, loving capacity of humans.

i am interested in the work of artists such as rora blue, ruby cromer, the hysteria project, and lora mathis. these four artists work around the common themes of power dynamics and control, public art, and intimacy in interdisciplinary, installation-based modalities. i am also inspired by writers, as text and lyricism is an important aspect of my work. writers such as andrea gibson, maggie nelson, and jenny slate heavily inform my practice. these writers communicate the dualities of existence and humanity in an approachable, authentic way that allows for grace. i am still learning how to create spaces where these dialogues can breathe; where questions are safe to be unanswered. i want to grow in the skills i have to talk about my work and find a safe place to start to create and show work that feels vulnerable. every connection we enter into is intimate and special. connections are not business transactions. i see my work as an extension of interpersonal dependency but also interpersonal trust and care. i see it as an extension of grace, a you’re a morally gray person and we all are morally gray people and i don’t expect anything from you.

i want my work to be seen not only as a reliable narrative of lived experience, but also as an entry point and a connective activity. i create work to find the places and people that i connect to, because for me, that’s survival. it’s our interdependencies.