Artist Statement

"My current body of work represents for me a wrapping up, a closure and a nod to things anew. The good fortune of my travels have provided me with places to wonder, roam and learn and I have for the last eight years worked on recording, rerecording and rebuilding those places in various abstract styles. All of the places I have been represent for me various notions of myself, constructions and ideas about who I am and how I live. The fantasy and construction of this separate self has lead me out of the present moment and into a place of false comfort and identity.

With this current body of work, I felt the pull of realism enter my painting for the first time. I began to take a different part in the exchange between painter and painting as I slowed and took new interest in no longer asserting myself onto these places, but rather allowing them to speak to me. I have given way to my own acceptance of the experience of observation and patient resolution as i paint.

Memories of these places and times in my life have often removed me from an authentic experience of the here and now. I realize that there is no alternative reality in which I am living my life - a different or better life in some perfected way. The attention to realism has provided my a new portal to seeing that I am as I should be; perfect nowhere other than where I am now. The fantasy and the memory can stay in the painting. I can be here now."

Exhibitions

Jessica Puma

You Don't Have To Go Anywhere

October 2nd – 31st, 2009

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Selected Works