Jiji Saunders is a painter who uses installation art, sculpture, photography and film to scaffold her work. Thematically Jiji is interested in the natural world and feminism, especially ecofeminism. “Ecofeminism seeks to eliminate the ‘parallel’ forms of oppression of women and nature” (Hunter, 2018). Jiji explores themes such as hiding, sexuality, coming of age, and ecological restoration.
Jiji uses the interplay of multiple mediums to depict a single theme, and her exhibits feature several mediums exploring one body of work. In her recent show called Hiding, Jiji imagined and painted shelters and caves. She depicted the shelters both in encaustic wax and water on a slate drawing board. The water paintings disappeared within minutes. She photographed them as they faded and transferred the images onto encaustic landscapes. As the final exploration of Hiding, she constructed a life-sized grass shelter based on her original paintings. In another exhibit, Jiji painted images of desertification. Then she constructed and installed a six-foot square sand table and sculpted the landscapes in glass and garnet sand. “When I delve into an idea using many mediums, I begin to understand the underlying messages and the next turn in my work.” Jiji works in her studio on Vashon Island.