Jessamyn Plotts
Drawing from cultural sources as diverse as Forensic Files,
Pornhub, and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, I make paintings
that acknowledge their ranging origins while simultaneously
asserting the inherent newness of gestural mark-making. I
use this visceral approach to address constructions of white
femininity, which contribute to oppressive societal paradigms
through their associations with violence and privilege in
representation. Rather than mimic the glossy, whitewashed
appearance of advertisements, television shows, or pornography,
I allow the painting process to mediate such content, producing
reinterpretations of commonly consumed images from the
interaction of paint and physical movement. The tradition of
emotionally rendered subject matter here lends itself to the
reassembling of women’s place in the history of image-making.