Jesse
Mooney-Bullock creates objects of art that fuse his abilities as a
woodworker, sculptor, fine artist and inventor. Combine this skill
set with his propensity for a story and you usually wind up with a
puppet. From sock puppets in his youth, to giant masks in the halls
of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to life-sized wooden
figures on the stage, his work is kinetic, well-made and beautiful.
In college, Mooney-Bullock and some fellow students got tangled up in puppetry and called themselves Unstrung. They created collaborative guerrilla art in subway stations and city squares, and a feature-length saga (La Cometa, 1999) performed at the Chicago Cultural Center. During and after his schooling he apprenticed with Blair Thomas, making puppets and contraptions, puppeteering and assisting. As puppet builder for Thomas, he re-engineered over-sized bun raku puppets for A Rabbit's Tale, performed in 2007 at the Chicago Symphony. As stage designer Mooney-Bullock built a collapsing puppet stage (Master Paedro's Retablo, 2000) and a one-man reconfigured-brass-horn section (Buster Keaton's Stroll, 2002). Many of his puppets and contraptions have also been seen in productions by Chicago's Redmoon Theater, including the Lemonade Machine (2001), a man-powered, food-processing parade vehicle. As puppet designer for Redmoon's Salao: the Worst Kind of Unlucky (2002), he made a 7 ft.-long Marlin, wooden sharks using authentic jaws, and a hand-carved, life-sized old man, which garnered a Joseph Jefferson Award. In 2005 he created a full-scale walrus, fox, unicyclist and statuesque Spanish dancer for the Papermill Playhouse production Carnival!, along with small rod puppet versions of each character.
In addition to works on commission, Mooney-Bullock creates and performs his own puppet shows. These are played out using hand puppets, papier maché masks, rod puppets, and bun raku figures. Public performances include The Difference Between (2001), Judas (2002), The Woman and the Serpent (2004) and Love Bait (2007).