Ana Jofre

Bio

Ana Jofre’s interdisciplinary practice is grounded in a diverse academic background, which includes a PhD in Physics from the University of Toronto. Ana started

pursuing art as a professional practice and exhibiting her work while serving as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Physics at UNC Charlotte, where

she conducted and published research in Experimental Biophysics. At this time, she also completed a BFA with a concentration in ceramics at the same University. A

romantic at heart, she found herself more motivated to make a cultural contribution to society than to collect and publish additional data. She is currently enrolled

in an MFA program at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University in Toronto, Canada, with a degree expected in April 2015. Her current practice integrates

knowledge and methodologies from various disciplines to create aesthetic experiences of ‘presence’. Science still de nes her approach to thinking, and the

perspective from which she views life. So, her practice-research approaches the human  gure from a data perspective, using science to break down gestures and

facial expressions into sets of elements that comprise a non-verbal vocabulary. Her current ongoing major project is her ‘people’, works that merge sculpture,

puppetry, and robotics to evoke a sense of uncanny ‘presence’.

Dr. Jofre also has an interest in data visualization, and holds a part time research position at in the Data Analytics Lab at OCAD University.

Artist’s Statement

I’m interested in the emotional response that anthropomorphic objects elicit, and in our desire to imagine life within them. My life-sized ‘people’ are the artistic

output of playful musings on this idea, merging sculpture with puppetry and some robotics, with the intent of evoking a (pleasurable) sense of uncanny ‘presence’.

The human  gure, as a form with which to communicate, and the themes of presence and personality are key throughout all my artistic products, which include

ceramic sculptures and pencil-drawn portraits.