Bio
Jess Burgess b.1993 is a British artist currently based in Norwich. She earned a BA (First) at Norwich University of the Arts (2017), graduating with an MA (Distinction) from the same institution a year later, both in Fine Art. She has been awarded the young artist award by the prestigious Lynn Painter Stainer Prize, and exhibited at the Sir John Hurt Art Prize as well as winning the first Zealous Stories UK painter prize.
As well as her involvement in an extensive selection of group exhibitions and projects, including ‘FULLY AWAKE’ a multi-exhibition project organised by ‘Teaching Painting’ group, Dyson Gallery, Royal Collage of Art, London and ‘Two Lives in Colour, East Gallery, Norwich, Jess Burgess has also been featured in publications such as ‘Friend of the Artists Volume 11’, Selection by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Angeliki, Kim Jonsson and Adele Smejkal.
Statement
My research questions how the virtual space of the digital screen affects the way we view the world, in particular the habit of simultaneously viewing many windows full of disconnected images. Questions surrounding the virtual screen inform my decisions when creating new meanings from disparate forms, and influences the way I disrupt the pictorial composition. I use the process of painting to explore how we consume and discard images with little pause for thought, and suggest that this has given painting a new agency as a slower medium.
My research has influenced the way I bring traditional, painterly ideas into a dialogue with our experiences of reading space and material in a world saturated with digital images. I am currently investigating how painting has developed into a more interactive discipline by forming relationships between genres and using existing art histories as a catalogue from which to generate new material.
The subject matter of these paintings: images of women, the home, interiors and objects, in some ways conveys my own experiences or anxieties, albeit from a distance. My research through the ‘virtual window’ has allowed me to reflect on how, as a painter today, technology impacts on the way I look, think and work.
