Jessixa is a Seattle based artist, originally from Portland, Oregon. Her first memory of making art is when she tried to build a robot out of a shoebox, empty paper towel tubes and a broken radio. When it failed to clean her room, she realized she would never be robotics engineer and began to draw roller-skating dinosaurs instead; the rest is history. Later she studied art at the University of Washington for two years, and then attended Cornish College of The Arts in Seattle where she received her bachelors of fine arts degree in 2004 in painting and printmaking. Her professional career as an artist has been focused mostly in comics and illustration but she is a practicing fine artist as well. Her fine art work often plays with the theme of portraiture and frequently uses cartoon imagery. She adores cupcakes, all things anthropomorphic and fake food. Jessixa lives in Seattle, Washington in a box of crayons with her husband and her cat.
Statement on "Grew":
I have a nostalgic love for icons from my young childhood. Those comforting images, feelings and smells of my primary school days are still something I hold fondly in my memories. We are taught going to school is a natural part of our culture; that it is crucial to our growth as people. We are taught to embrace this process, feel safe in it, and quickly find our place in it. Elementary school is the stepping-stone to which we are placed into a formal system of rules. Just as in nature a tree grows starting as a seedling, in our world, this is our first step towards growth. In the series Grew I am creating a playful dialogue between the “natural” components of life. What is natural to us is performing and growing within a system; while in a more organic sense, we grow regardless of these systems. Both forms, one created by the Earth the other created by man, are meant to connect the viewer to a past familiarity and evoke a conversation about growing. Also, by using leafless trees and a somber palette I clash adult overtones with the youthful and whimsical subject matter. This combination of contradictory elements creates a sense of irony within the viewer-we are reminded of the icons of youth byway of an adult perspective. Comparing the context of these images allows me to explore the humor of where we come from.
