TITAN CONTEMPORARY
A monthly spotlight on a notable artist. Start date 8/7/2025.
T I T A N V O I C E
JAINA CIPRIANO
Jaina Cipriano is a filmmaker, photographer, writer, set designer, and actor whose work has been published over 200 times in notable publications such as The Boston Globe, The Phoblographer, Mister Magazine, and Lens Magazine. She has exhibited extensively in Massachusetts as well as participated in exhibitions nationally and internationally in Germany, Italy, and Greece. Recent exhibitions in Boston include Cambridge Art Association, The Station, Laconia Gallery, and 808 Gallery at Boston University. Jaina is also the director and owner of the Arlington Film Festival as well as the founder of Finding Bright Studios, a company specializing in artistic set design.
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For the purpose of this article we will be focusing on Jaina’s films, since the last TCP essay discussed her photography. Jaina Cipriano’s films are not meant to be understood, but rather observed in the moment. The viewer will find lucid conversations which build up her various characters followed by mesmerizing visuals which induce a feeling as if slipping into a warm bath and then finding ourselves suddenly in ice cold water. Jaina’s sense of ‘shock and awe’ can be especially observed in her most recent projects such as the short series The Impostor Syndrome and Only Me on TV. These particular works express a notion of passing and lost time as we are eagerly transported from one scene or narrative to the next. Jaina’s fragmented and non-linear approach to filmmaking becomes further accentuated by the revealing of innocent, manic visuals and ingenious set design which invokes comfort as well as mystery and absurdity.
The slightly older film projects of Jaina Cipriano are Trauma Bond and You Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon. Filled with strange characters and dialogue which invites intrigue as well as discomfort, Jaina introduces suspense in these particular works through strategic, hallucinogenic sequences which induce horror, euphoria, and thrilling sensations simultaneously. Jaina’s writing compliments her visuals in the filmwork as her characters display a sense of confidence as if they understand their own psychological impulses, desires, and fears. The intricate hand-made set design and props further compliment these mysterious figures through improper scaling, toy-like aesthetics, and pop-art-induced colors.
The Impostor Syndrome (pictured below), written by and starring Jaina Cipriano, takes us on a journey through various sequences of dialogue and visuals. Ranging from trying to find the right inspiration for writing a book on the ‘Raccoon Wars’ to a conversation of random facts about cacti to arguments with a muppet to a story-time dialogue about mythology and the false promises as well as fallacy of artificial intelligence, The Impostor Syndrome forces you to confront changes of conscious observation. In essence, the short film series could be described as revealing the mind of an artist with attention deficit disorder who feels lack of confidence towards her ability to express herself, even though she is quite skillful in reality, hence the title. The disjointed narrative and dialogue structure as well as the child-like set design reveals an imaginative world full of acceptance of abnormality and raw creativity.
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Jaina Cipriano as an artist imbues her films with an integrative approach of clever dialogue revealing characters attuned with their subconscious, hand-crafted set design visuals which stun, mystify, haunt, as well as entertain combined with acting which can be described as mindfully intriguing. Her films often have a hypnotic effect, only to break the numbing experience through a jolt of mesmerizing visuals and sustained audio which shatter the viewer’s notion of comfort, familiarity, and solace. With witty scriptwriting steeped in dialogue full of mindfulness, a range of manic visuals as well as a fragmented, non-linear structure, Jaina Cipriano remains one of the very most promising young artists of our generation who no doubt has endless capacity to provide her audience with flavorful art which highly stimulates our imagination.
The audience should note that none of the photography uses photoshop or any other means of photographic manipulation as all the photographs depict real scenes and theatrical sets hand crafted by Jaina herself. Much of the recent work deals with the reflections of Jaina’s background growing up in a socially-isolating religious cult. There remain themes of isolation, entrapment, stagnation, and vulnerability and her work typically portrays self-portraiture in elaborate, imaginative scenes with grand theatrics evoking emotions of mania, depression, and anxiety. She uses direct spotlights and dramatic shadows to create a sense of tension and suspense in the photography.
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Power Prayer (pictured above left) represents one of Jaina’s darkest works. While many of her photographs may reflect absurdity or melancholiness, Power Prayer on the other hand almost seems like a hallucination based on her personal past. The manic depiction portrays Jaina as a dark figure covered in a blood-red light holding a wooden sword modeled in a pose reminiscent of religious scenery from renaissance paintings. Perhaps a reflection on the darker side of religion or a portrayal of violent and angry righteousness.
These deeply psychological photographs range in depiction of being isolated in dreary constructed forests, confident portrayals on elaborate lighted stages, and being ensnared inside staged sets such as a giant eyeball and miniature interior. Jaina uses props such as giant scissors, wooden swords, stuffed animals, and assembled food to create scenes of absurdity and hallucinogenic environments. These photographs are designed to be imaginative rather than a direct reflection of reality, often based in metaphor, allegory, and symbolism reflecting trauma. With a sense of playful darkness, Jaina creates compounded environments and scenarios which harken on our collective sense of unfamiliarity and being cast into situations outside our comfort zones.
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Jaina Cipriano can be described as an artist who digs deeper into the inner self-conscious to study our profound desires, fears, and vulnerabilities. With elaborate theatrics, enveloping darkness, and dramatic lighting, she explores contemporary notions of personal identity in regard to how individuals deal with the past, present, and future. Her art contains a sense of rawness and exposition of grand theatre on an elaborate and meticulously constructed scale through unique and dreamlike set design. Whether through imaginative colors or monochromatic depictions, Jaina is a master of atmospheric tension, creating both serene and nightmarish scenarios depicting the complex nature of the human experience in regards to memory and fleeting moments.
