Regina Durante Jestrow
*Featured photo:Vulnerability & Resilience, 2023, Ink, watercolor, and acrylic on burnt muslin, second-hand shirting material, muslin, batting, thread 34 x 31.5 in, copyright Regina Durante Jestrow
Regina Durante Jestrow (1978) is a textile artist born in Queens, NY, and based in Miami, FL. She learned how to sew from her mother at a young age and has utilized these skills throughout her practice. After attending the Fashion Institute of Technology for photography and moving to Miami, Jestrow turned to quilting to cope with homesickness, as the sewing machine was always in the center of her home. Jestrow’s ongoing interests in women’s rights and history, patterns and stories from American quilt-making traditions, and textile arts have led her to develop a body of work that includes painting, drawings, sculptural installations, textile wall hangings, and functional objects.
Jestrow’s artworks, with their obvious geometric connotations, are born from the constant revisiting of American history and the recontextualization of its textile traditions. Indeed, traditional quilting patterns are manipulated and deconstructed to create movement and transformation through improvisation, repetition of patterns, and changes in scale. Aiming to represent the natural environment of South Florida, the people, culture and landscape of Miami, Jestrow uses colors that portray the skin tones of the people, combined with dyes made from locally sourced plants and rust. Finally, the use of materials such as neoprene, sequins, and faux leather helps reinforce references to Miami’s pop culture.
“Along with my constant interest in American Folk-Art Quilts, geometric-abstract artists from the mid to late twentieth century are my influencers, including Gees Bend quilters, Elizabeth Murray, Helen Frankenthaler, Annie Albers, and Gego. These artistic voices have driven me to create quilts of scale with strong personal symbolism and narrative”.
Selected solo projects include “Free-Form Connections” at Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dunedin, FL (2023), “Pieces of the Landscape” at Mt. Sinai Skolnick Tower Surgical Center, organized by Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, FL (2023), “Reinterpretation of Tradition” at Laundromat Art Space, Miami, FL (2022), and “Forms of The Everglades” at Miami-Dade College Homestead Library, Homestead, FL (2016). Selected group exhibitions include “Hand Over Hand: Textiles Today” at Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL (2023), “A-Piece-A-Part” at ArtSpace NC, Raleigh, NC (2023), and “In the Company of Women: At Large” at LnS Gallery, Miami, FL (2022). Jestrow has been awarded artist residencies at The Jentel Foundation (2022), National Park Service Artist in Residence in the Everglades (AIRIE) (2014), and The Studios of Key West (2012). Awarded grants include the South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC, 2023), Miami Individual Artists (MIA) Grant (2023) and Stipend (2022), The Ellies, Miami’s visual arts awards, presented by Oolite Arts (2021), and the Artist Access Grant, Miami-Dade County and FUNdarte (2021, 2022, 2023).
