Free Motion
Jess is a 19-year-old visual artist from the Northern Rivers, currently based in Wollongong whilst completing her art studies. Her main mediums include free motion embroidery as well as a strong passion for designing and sewing swimwear.
Jess’ exploration of embroidery explores the medium as a contemporary art form, through her art practice she attempts to destigmatise the traditional artform of embroidery, where it is typically deemed as a women’s past time for needle work or ‘grandmotherly’ into something that comments on social and political issues. This can be seen in Jess’ work through the use of controversial mediums such as plastic bags. The use of plastic bags is an important medium within my work as plastic as a whole are one of the most common forms on litter in the world, which is evidently destroying the environment yet is still such a prevalent use of material within todays consumeristic society. Through the process of combining such a discarded object in contrast to a time consuming and delicate art form such as embroidery it challenges a modern audience to think about the fragility and impermanence of life on Earth. Unlike the hastily discarded plastic bag the Earth only has one use and we only have one life, shouldn’t we be taking care of it?
In Jess’ recent embroidery explorations she has been experimenting with embroidering directly on old magazines collected throughout her life. Simply just free stitching on the pages, no previously drawn shapes. The process of stitching directly on the images lets her mind wander and create unique embroidery art. Jess is always looking to collaborate with artists from any discipline.