Artist’s Statement

 I see painting as a lifelong experimentation into the nature of perception and reality. My interest in painting feels more scientific than anything. It is as if, by using the simple ‘subatomic’ substrates of perception: line, color, saturation, pattern, and light, as controls, I can make the manipulation of these elements the independent variable and consciousness the dependent variable, in some sort of visual, perceptual experiment. The desired outcome of which would be for the paintings to feel as if the viewer is putting together an image, to recreate the sensation of perceiving a reality. These painterly experiments are executed  to determine if, by using these different elements of perceptual reality in random recombination,  one can recreate the mental perception of experience.

I use the rules of abstract expressionism to ensure a natural rhythm; I do not start with an image in mind, I let one develop. I do not use a brush, I do not believe in accidents, I do whatever I feel moved to do to the painting- with no loyalty to the ‘picture’ but servitude to ‘the image’ and the surface.  I facilitate the exposure of this image rather than create a new one.  I use drips, splatters, and flicks, to ensure a randomness to every act of application. I use a variety of media such as oil, latex, enamel, even nail polish, to allow the natural reactions of the materials to influence the painting. Often the interactions will cause the paint to curdle, or spread filaments extensively in a mold like pattern around itself. This method ensures that the surface of the paint, like the surface of rocks or the surface of the forest floor, will have an autopoetic, fractal, self sameness and pattern.

I especially like to use this method of facilitating organic patterns and grids, to recreate a sense of looking through things. It is in those moments when I look at a scene through a series of trees and brambles and grasses, or through old waving glass, or floating on top of water, that I most deeply consider the fact that my brain is flipping the image and correcting for blind spots. My mind is recording all the horizontal and vertical lines, I am perceiving the colors in a potentially unique range. How much of what we see is as it is, and how great is the effect of our consciousness and physiology on the elements which make up color, line and pattern; essentially (as the physicists will tell you) all of it simply light. I consider my paintings an attempt to figure out how it is that we mentally extract all this- reality- from just light. My paintings are meant to reflect this sense of assembly, both in my assembly of experimental variation and in the viewer’s assembly of the image.

Also, in their finished state the paintings are intended to function as a test, confirmed by the viewer’s perception, for the presence of my consciousness, my internal rhythm. Despite the endless variation and chance, is there a coherent perspective throughout; is there a common pitch to every painting I develop, as if I play in a key? In all the encouraged, enforced, and allowed randomness is there something which develops universally?  As the painting develops there seems to be an organic pattern to consciousness, just like a mold which seems to grow as if on some unseen fractal trellis, and this begs the question, can the artist’s spirit grow naturally, in the painting?

This work grapples with the extent to which a reality can evolve/resolve from random perceptual effects. It tests for how little is needed before we start pulling it together into an image. It flickers around the question, how much information and chaos can the mind take and still attempt to create a knowable image.  These are the questions I will follow with my dripping can of paint, and trail of experiments. Of course, all of this experimentation, like most scientific study, is done in honor of the perfect and elegant beauty of natural design.  

Solo Painting Exhibitions:

2009  PhotoSensualis, Woodstock, NY

2008  Way Out, Rensselaerville, NY

2007  Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA

2007  Studio Swan, Palmetto, GA

2007  Way Out, Rensselaerville, NY

2007  AMW, Birmingham, AL

2006  Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA

2006  Nelson Fine Arts, Lexington, VA

Group Exhibitions:

2009  Atlantic Works, With a Little Help From our Friends, Boston, MA

2009  Faison School, Art for Autism, Richmond, VA

2008  Long View Gallery, with Mary Chiaramonte, Washington, DC

2008  Faison School, Art for Autism, Richmond, VA

2007  Faison School, Art for Autism, Richmond, VA

2007  1708 Gallery, Annual Art Auction, Richmond, VA

2006  XYZ Gallery, with Justin Nissley, Blacksburg, VA

2005  Zone Chelsea, Mixed Bag, New York, NY

2005  XYZ Gallery, Group Show, Blacksburg, NY

Public Collections:

Markel Corporate Collection, Richmond, VA

Ukrops Corporate Collection, Richmond, VA

Solo Exhibitions of Self Possessed a collaboration with photographer, Len Prince:

2009  PhotoSensualis, Woodstock, NY

2008  Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, FL

2007  AMW, Birmingham, AL

2007  Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2007  Adamson Gallery, Washington, DC

2007  Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, IL

2006  Danziger Projects, New York, New York

2006  Mercury Art Works, Athens, GA

Public Collections:

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, FL

The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Distinctions:

Shots Photography Festival, Juried Selection, Charlottesville, VA

The Art Institute of Chicago, Lecture and Slide Show, Chicago, IL

Select Bibliography:

Collins, Lauren.  “Jessie Again” Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, November 6^th   2006, pp. 50-52.

Hawkins, Margaret.  “Abstract Art Making a Clear Contribution” Gallery Glance, Chicago Sun-Times, March 30^th, 2007.

Joslin, Russell.  “Interviews with Jessie Mann and Len Prince”, Shots Magazine, issue 95 (Spring) 2007, pp. 34-44.

Mann, Jessie. “Self Possessed”, Before the Lens, Aperture Magazine, issue 183 (Summer) 2006, pp. 28-39.

Maxwell, Douglas, F.  “ Len Prince and Jessie Mann”, ARTnews, November 2006, pp. 183-84.

O’Sullinvan, Michael. “Photos Worth a Thousand Lies”, The Washington Post, The Weekend Section, January 26^th, 2007.

Schoenauer, David. “Ode to Photo History: Len Prince puts photo icon Jessie Mann back on center stage.”,  State of the Art, American Photo, Sept/Oct, 2007.

Education:

2004 Bachelor of Arts, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA

2000 International Baccalaureate, George School, Newtown, PA

About the Artist:

Jessie Mann grew up around and in art. The daughter and frequent subject of artist Sally Mann and a native of Lexington Virginia (home to many acclaimed writers and artists such as painter Cy Twombly, under whose tutelage Jessie pursued her personal exploration of painting) Jessie was consistently engaged in creative practice, discussion or thought. She left behind her home studio when she went to George School in Pennsylvania in order to pursue her education. In college, she studied mainly science and philosophy, and while there began her collaboration with Len Prince. In her early twenties, before returning to painting as a full time pursuit, it became apparent to Jessie that the facts of her life- her pre-standing artistic character, her interest in the nature, action and consequence of subjecthood, and the timing of her existence (which allowed her access to ideas of postmodern self aware character, via the groundbreaking work of Kahlo, Warhol, Sherman, and Goldin)- made for an interesting artistic opportunity. Once she met Prince, in whom she found a natural collaborator, a common spirit and a dear friend, she threw herself into an artistic study of self- aware yet abstracted identities, archetypes, muses, and free standing characters. This work was debuted in the “Self Possessed” show and is still ongoing.  Since her graduation from Washington and Lee, Jessie has completed a national tour of “Self Possessed” and shown her paintings extensively throughout the North and South East. She now lives and paints in Brooklyn.