Artist Bio

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Jessica is a prolific full-time professional painter who lives and works in Boston and has an art studio at Vernon Street Studios in Somerville, Massachusetts.  Growing up in an artistic environment with several artists in her family had many advantages.  Her mother was an art teacher and professional artist, her grandfather was a painter who painted with a small group of highly collectible listed artists.  In high school and college, she studied color photography and was interested in color, movement and texture.  She has studied at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, DeCordova Museum and Danforth Art.  She was fortunate to have studied under the late Ati Gropius, daughter of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus art school in Germany.  On Prospect Street in La Jolla, she worked at a fine art gallery.  She has painted in exotic and diverse locations including the mountains and rainforest in Costa Rica, National Parks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, farmlands in Vermont, Los Angeles, New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.  Her body of work includes abstract and figural work with an emphasis on energy, expression and color.  

Recent shows include one man, group, invitational and many juried exhibits which she received awards and sold artwork, including DeCordova Museum, Danforth Museum, Newport Art Museum, Attleboro Arts Museum, Warwick Museum of Art, Somerville Museum, Dacia Gallery, Galatea Fine Art, Julie Heller Gallery East, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Newburyport Art Association, Inside-OUT Gallery, Gallery 55, Spring Bull Gallery, Pawtucket Arts Collaborative.  She has been invited to be the Juror for an art show and the curator for another show.  She attended the LA Summer Residency at Otis College and an artist residency with Dacia Gallery in NYC’s Lower East Side, as well as being accepted into many other residencies.  She was commissioned by Federal Realty at FitRow at Assembly Row to do a permanent large scale public artwork.  She participates in the Somerville Open Studios at Vernon Street Studios and Brickbottom Artists’ Studios.  Her artwork is in many collections throughout the United States, Europe and South America, she has sold through art galleries, her art studio, and online.  She has a loyal following of supporters and collectors.

 

 

 

 

Artist Statement

 

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My passion for years has been portrait painting.  I started to paint friends and it was an entirely different experience than painting professional models.  I enjoy the conversation and learning about my subjects, I have always been told that I am easy to talk to, and people often like telling me about themselves.  In painting portraits of friends, they reveal things about themselves that is very personal, and through their stories, I feel as if I am able to capture their personalities in their portraits.  The painting sessions are healing for the subject, many having self-esteem or body issues, and I am excited to be able to paint a beautiful portrait that captures their personality and beauty.  
 

Over the years I have wanted to create larger scale works, but have been restricted by studio size, so have been creating large works on paper.  This quickly led to the creation of my first mural, for Federal Realty at FitRow at Assembly Row in the Partner's Healthcare Building.  It is a 3 wall mural spread over 3 floors, 2 flights, riser walls, landing floors with a sculpture hanging from the ceiling.  This really excited me and made me want to create more murals.  I went back to the studio, and continued to experiment, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, when by chance, saw more calls for murals and started to sketch out ideas.  I now know murals and large scale works are what I want to do.   

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My art is perfect for murals and large scale works because it is big, bold and colorful with a focus on the human figure, and a strong understanding of contemporary portraiture.  I use the absence of local color in my work in order to represent the way I see things in my mind's eye.  My current focus is to create more murals, corporate art, commissions, and participate in artist residencies.