Jessie Mahon
Jessie Mahon is a draftswoman with a background in theatre who creates drawings with color pencil and marker, or just graphite, on paper while sometimes incorporating watercolor and acrylic...
Jessie Mahon is a draftswoman with a background in theatre who creates drawings with color pencil and marker, or just graphite, on paper while sometimes incorporating watercolor and acrylic. She has exhibited across the United States and recent exhibitions include two solo shows in Los Angeles at Gallery Umico and group exhibitions at Bermudez Projects in Los Angeles, GFAA Gallery in Gainesville, Florida, 311 Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Rockefeller Center in New York City. Her framed drawings have been featured as backdrops in various television shows on HBO and she has participated in numerous residencies, most recently in Portugal and New York.Â
The drawings within Jessie’s portfolio are quite colorful and usually incorporate patterns which may resemble fabric such as upholstery or florals. Containing hot pinks, crisp oranges, and seeping magentas, Jessie’s color palette revolves around a mix of pastel and neon tones creating vibrant, rich compositions which pop out to the viewer. The works depict figures interacting with a space while their inner form becomes consumed by patterns or the colors of the interior, landscape, or negative space for which they inhabit.Â
Each figure in every drawing becomes either cropped or their face portrayed by patterns or scenery, as if their head was an empty piece of paper. Some of Jesse’s most interesting drawings are the compositions containing hands in recreation because of their complex body language. In the works, a concept Jessie communicates to the viewer would be how beautiful and unique every person in her drawings are. Every individual has their own inner landscape, pattern, or background to convey their direct personality.Â
Sunny D (pictured above) depicts a glass of orange juice against a tangerine background being picked up by a pair of hands. One hand has a hole which conveys emptiness and depression while the other hand portrays a flock of birds sitting on electrical wires with the word ‘ virgo’ on the knuckles. A sense of playfulness against melancholiness and pop art joy with the eye-popping tangerine background. The hands hold the glass as if the juice was sustenance and sacred, like a fountain of youth given by an oracle. Jessie creates an entire mythology around a cup of juice with iconography, subtle metaphor, and body language.Â
Jessie Mahon can be described as an intricate draftswoman who communities bold concepts through color and pattern. She takes both unusual and everyday scenery converging them together to create a statement about contemporary design principles and reinterpretations of representational art. Like silhouettes, her carefully carved and intricate figures play against their backdrops like ballet dancers in the theatre, through integration of a unique pastel and neon color palette. A dynamic artist and conceptual provocator, Jessie Mahon desires for the viewer to investigate her imaginative compositions and their relationship with figures which address individualism through expressive patterns and color formations.
