Jesse is an artist, researcher and educator. Jesse works both in the studio and directly with active evolving landscapes to address issues of political ecology, language and communication.
Jesse exhibits his work internationally in solo and group exhibitions hosted by institutions, museums, and commercial galleries worldwide and disseminates his research projects with major global publishers. Jesse has been working at the RCA for over seven years during which he has been consistently engaged with issues of sustainability in the college. He is a member of the Environmental Sustainability Steering Group and the RCA Environmental Sustainability Committee.
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Research interests
Jesse is currently engaged with a long-term research project on a site in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. He works in collaboration with his research partners, local community organisations and arts institutions to address how creative perspectives on regenerative ecological practices can positively affect our understanding of the climate crisis and the wellbeing of participants. Jesse also works in a studio environment, making intricate collages, paintings, theatre models, scripts, and live performances.
Practice
Jesse works with painting, collage, writing, performance, sculpture, film and ecological-based community projects to explore perspectives on political history. Looking at how events are framed and presented – his work implicates the emotional, psychological, visual and geographic distances that lie between the individual and the political and ecological environment that surrounds us.
Jesse’s Avoidance-Avoidance project (2012-2020) incorporated an evolving play in the form of a love story, performed amongst artworks that act like supporting props. The project has been presented in 5 languages at Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation Stockholm, CAC Bretigny Paris, Arnolfini Bristol, Museo Marino Marini Florence, Monitor Gallery Rome, Mendes Wood DM Sao Paolo and Stericher Herbst Graz. The project is assembled together as a book published by Sternberg Press, Berlin (2020).
Since completing his PhD on the subject of the political agency of rumour at Goldsmiths College, London in 2010, Jesse has used writing and speech as an integral part of his making process – manifesting either through published texts, essays, live events or performed scripts.
