Jessica Houston

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Paintings

oil on canvas

Ballot Box, 2010	Carrying Water, 2010	Child Matador Draws Oles, 2010
Declaration of Silence, 2009	Eyes Breath Memory (Detail), 2010	How Nature Behaves, 2010
Awaiting Care, 2009	Turning Toward Silence, 2010	You Have What You Seek, 2010
Seeking Refuge, 2011	In Time, 2007	The Golden Toad, 2007

The Times

paint on newsprint over panel

21 Luglio, 2008	Domenica, 17 Agosto, 2008	Giovedi, 21 Agosto, 2008
Martedi, 28 Agosto, 2007	Vendredi, 3 Juillet, 2009	Martedi, 22 Luglio, 2008
November 20, 2008, 2008	Jeudi 19 Juin 2008, 2008	November 28, 2008, 2008

Ice and Navigation

Sky, Ice, Time, 2007	Measuring Time by Rhythm, 2007	Inertial Navigation, 2007
Red Ship, 2007

Artist Statement

STATEMENT

My work is an investigation of ephemera and transformation of the everyday. I often use

found materials that either reveal or subvert underlying formative principles. Whether I’m

painting over newspapers, making installations from objects collected in the Arctic,

intervening in public spaces, or inviting scientists to interact, I am driven by subtle shifts

in perception and a rearrangement of form. I’m drawn to the fleeting experience that

allows for impermanence, chance, unpredictability and tenuous stability. I’m looking for

the possibility of revelation through simple means, a place and a moment where now

dissolves into always, and always into now.

THE TIMES: THE MOMENT AT HAND

For over a year, I have been painting over newspapers—obliterating, whiting out, and

rearranging the page. The underlying typographical structure is laid bare by the absence

of language and a parallel, simultaneously existing abstraction is exposed. They are

works about sustaining an epiphany of bodily presence while working within parameters

of pre-determined systems. The newspaper provides a constant format within which

there is no possibility of prediction, allowing chance to provide the parameters of the

work. In their multilayered process of making, these paintings become a palimpsest—a

chance to sand away and begin anew.    

Artist Bio

Jessica Houston was born in 1970 in Chicago. She lives and works in New York City. She holds an MA from Columbia University.  She was an invited artist aboard a Cape Farewell voyage to the Arctic, and was featured in the expedition documentary by Big Heart Media, London, UK. Recently, she presented her work at the International Polar Year Conference in Oslo, and was invited to the Tipping Point Conference, a climate change think tank, held by Columbia University.  Selected exhibitions include: NJ MOCA, New Jersey (2010); I Castello di Corigliano, Corigliano, Italy (2010); Camac Center for Art, Marnay sur-Seine,  France (2009); British Embassy, online debate (2009); Sragow Gallery, New York (2009); Miami Red Dot Art fair (2007); Berliner KunstProjekt, Berlin (2003). Her work explores subtle shifts in perception and rearrangement of form; her site-specific installation at New Jersey MOCA continues this interrogation, eliciting articulation of and observations on color.