CREATIVE OF THE MONTH – AUGUST 2021

JESS EGAN

Jess is a visual artist working in the South West, her work is primarily centred around landscape, works both figuratively and in an abstract style painting.

Bamburgh Castle – Ink pen and pencil drawing – commission approx A4

Landscape, coastline, and the skies above are fundamental features in my work, they are where I find space to think and ever since I was small, I have been compelled to try and capture what I see around me; just recently I was prompted to remember drawing mountains in Spain on a childhood family holiday, trying to perfect an art and capture something of what it was like to be there in that magnificent landscape. I am enthralled by openness, large scale vistas, and my human sized place within that. Working with acrylics, inks, watercolour etc, I like to explore intuitively through my materials. The processes of painting and drawing are vital, the physicality of mark making, and so my work is often abstract as it takes the original focus into an emotional experience.

St Ives – Ink and Watercolour on paper – approx 10×7”

I am beginning to understand that I am interested in ‘experience’ and how I translate that in my work. I think this partly stems back to a time when I lost confidence in my painting and drawing and took up a compulsion for taking photographs, obsessively recording places but not drawing them. Now photos sometimes inform my work alongside my sketches but are mainly a way for me to have moments of creativity at a click of a button, an achievement, a capture, a new possession. Then I can develop my ideas with drawing/markmaking later as a slower more considered approach. I used these ideas on a large scale in my work for ‘Somerset Reacquainted’ exploring the lockdown experience, taking daily photographs and exploring my feelings about time and its influence on us, part of the experience of life.

After spending many years apart from my practice I have realised how important making art is to maintaining my peace of mind and how key it is to my identity. I am keen to promote the message of art for all and creativity for health.