Studios > Jesse Wright
AscensionJesse Wright
Jesse Wright (American / Jamaican, 1974) lives and works in Jersey City, NJ. His work relies heavily on a background in painting and design. It often incorporates materials found while walking on journeys between Jersey City and New York City (what's left of messages found in ripped posters and half painted over billboards, clipped newspaper headlines lying there on the subway's floor, the pop-up windows, textbooks, Scriptures, and intuition). Switching technique to reflect the many ways in which we communicate and the layers of meanings. These elements are re-purposed to reflect a spiritual connection underlying daily experience and observation. Traveling internationally gave a respect for iconography that transcends language. Working in technologies gave an awareness of the various ways we are able to communicate and how fragmented the messages can become.
Recent work has involved large scale (mixedmedia) paintings referencing the chaos of the "Book of Revelation" along side the peace of the "Transfiguration" found in scripture.
This approach is carried over to (if not inspired by) several "books". During a difficult time the artist began to gather scraps of paper heading to and from work to arrange in the evening as an immediate outlet to record and collage random scraps of conversations, thoughts, and found papers. These arrangements evolved into several books. The processess of gathering and arranging carried over into large scale paintings as the energy could no longer be contained within the space of the page. They eventually begin to develop an "arc" of a story and often evolve from slap-dash collage to full-blown paintings / compositions.
During his time at Aferro, Wright plans to move from the "wall to the floor" to explore stand alone objects and sculpture, and to work with materials like asphalt, plaster, and tar.
