Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessie Renew.
Hi Jessie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was lucky enough to be born in the ’80s, to off-beat parents, in Johannesburg, South Africa. My homeland is unique for its bursting diversity – the landscape includes mountains, beaches, forests, deserts, cities, farmland, and beautiful rural nothingness. People come in all colors, shapes, and sizes with endless backgrounds, histories, cultures, languages, traditions, religions, and artistic traditions. My childhood was marked by wanting to witness, absorb and celebrate all of this bold activity, despite being painfully aware of the backdrop of acute racism, poverty, violence, and unrest that marked late-stage Apartheid.
It is this dichotomy, this awkward co-existence of beauty and pain, that has informed much of my artistic and intellectual life. Cows make milk, and I make art. My personal biological imperative to build, create and shape the world around me has always been central to my life. I studied art extensively throughout my childhood and college years, with a real focus on materials – honing my ability to understand how different fabrics, pigments, papers, tools, adhesives, and objects behaved in different treatments, scenarios, scales, and environments. Particularly in my college years, I became jaded by the art education system and found myself constantly at odds with my professors about conceptual issues.
All of the gates, barriers, and blockades created under the guise of aesthetics served only to limit the creativity of myself and the students around me. Rather than being inspired to push boundaries and create things that were totally new, we were dissuaded by being not quite the right size and shape for existing artistic paradigms. Not to mention the rampant horror stories about how difficult and unfulfilling the life of an artist was likely to be. The decade following my art education was a lot about unlearning these false psychological barriers and trusting myself enough to find my own voice.
I felt pressured to have a successful career and worked hard to climb some imaginary ladder that would confirm my value to society. But all along, on a cellular level, I was an artist brewing with visual and conceptual ideas, waiting for the right circumstances that would let me create. And then, things began to just flow. A friend, Jevon Daly, asked me to help him create a music video, which led to a multi-disciplinary collaboration that got great feedback. The experience reopened my mind, body, and soul to the reality of my true nature as an artist. I fed this seed, taking on side jobs doing murals, chalk art, videos, and illustration. Finally, in 2021, I committed fully to my studio practice and making art from a place of intuition, joy, excitement, confidence, and trust.
I was lucky enough to align with Marie Cardalous of the GAP Gallery, who gave me my first opportunity to show work in Charleston in October 2021. Since then I have participated in 9 group shows, including Piccolo Spoleto and ‘Whale Club’ – a residency in rural Maine. I also secured my first solo show in July 2022 at the Park Circle Gallery in North Charleston. Going forward my aim is to continue to have amazing fun by making art that is authentic and always surprising – most of all to myself!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Overall, my biggest challenge has been to trust myself and shut out the chatter of opinions crowding around art. Much of being an artist is getting rejected, it’s just the nature of trying to do something truly new. In the past, these rejections would derail me, and cause me to question my own talent, skill, intellect, and ability.
I feel glad now to know the validity and importance of my work, and any opposing opinion doesn’t rock that foundation. In fact, I can see now that rejection and even failure, are key indicators that I am really trying and succeeding in bringing truly new ideas to life.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work is visual art. Rather than favoring a particular medium, style, or manner of working, I follow my intuition to pair my ideas with the right form. My latest body of work, called ‘Retrofits’ are sculptures created out of “free stuff”, or ‘trash’ if you prefer. I collect objects from the side of the road, free Facebook groups, friend barns, my mom’s garage, used art supply sales, thrift stores, and anywhere else where chaos and randomness are present.
My collections then reside in my studio, where they begin to converse, both about their visual relationships but also about their past lives and spirits. From there, I just let them lead me to create thick, rich, bright, objects composed of knitted, married, stuck, bound, carved, enrobed, destroyed, and rebuilt objects. They are a practice of freedom for me, and my intention is for that same freedom to be experienced by the viewer.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I am lucky to have a small group of people close to me that hold up a mirror and allow me to see my own potential. These include my high school printmaking teacher, Katya Cohen, who filled my head with ideas far too big for my developing brain. The music scene in Charleston in the mid-2000s, with bands like Puke Attack, who really showed me how to break all the rules, burn it all down, start a whole new thing, and just be cool.
My friends April Childress and Jody Tinsley showed me how to live outside and commune with nature. Musician Jevon Daly encouraged and coaxed me out of my artistic hiatus. My mother and my sister, have always encouraged me to advocate for myself. And my partner, David, with whom I grow and cultivate creativity, love, and home.
Pricing:
- Revolution Retrofit $900
- Revolution Papasan $400
- Pants Painting $500
- Leisure Lounger $350
- Earth’s Best Substance $500
Contact Info:
- Website: jessierenew.com
- Instagram: @jessierenew
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessierenew
