Class of 2019: Jessie Davies
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Hull School of Art and Design
“My work has become more complex, multi-layered and informed. Experimentation and risk taking have improved my skills. I have a much greater understanding of critical/analytical perspectives in visual culture which now informs my reflective practice.
Titled Wetlands, for the degree show I will present a series of 18 textural paintings and an ambient soundscape made in response to my direct experience of two freshwater reed beds. For the past year I have been ‘immersed’ in the foliage of these environments, drawing, painting and taking sound recordings above and below water. Through my experience of lived disability, I view and encounter these wetlands from the ground up.
I will create an immersive, reflective space which raises awareness of the threatened fresh water wetland ecologies which I’ve been studying and to which I have been responding creatively. This will provide an opportunity for the viewer to pause and reconnect with an inner awareness, in an increasingly pressured world.
This work has required extensive research into the reed bed ecology, field-recording and improvisation, observational and intuitive painting. The degree show has required the bringing together of various different strands of my practice into a cohesive body of work, on which I hope to build in the future.
After graduation I aim to get gallery representation. I will continue with some community arts practice, which I gained experience of during my course. I am also exploring collaborations with various environmental/ecology organisations and will continue painting my unusual perspective on the rural landscape.”
Degree show: 31 May – 19 June 2019. www.no44artscollective.co.uk
Image: Jessie Davies, Reeds 11, 51cmx51cm, acrylic on canvas.
Interview by Jack Hutchinson
