Midwest
Spotlight Artist
Jessie Mott
Midwest
Artist Statement
My practice encompasses a variety of media—including painting,
drawing, sculpture, and writing—though I am best known for
watercolor animal paintings in animations I make collaboratively
with artist and writer Steve Reinke. In this body of work, I write
melancholic and absurdist dialogue for the creatures that
Reinke animates.
The work explores themes of queerness, eroticism, power, and
vulnerability. Solitary hybrid creatures float in a blank white
background, portraitlike. Their bodies transcend binary gender
categories as well as the human–animal divide. Like an abject
fairy tale, the work combines playfulness, innocence, and the
suggestion of raw desire and/or shame; multiple worlds exist
at once.
Colorful geometric patterning, the use of twinning/doubling, and
symbolism rooted in ancient cultures coexist with the creatures’
often seductive yet unnerving gaze. The paintings invite the viewer
to project their own fantasies or narrative onto the image.
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