MeSo Ventures

Artist Spotlight

Jessie Makinson

London — Painting

Jessie Makinson creates richly imagined ecofeminist worlds in which human and non-human life exist in a constant state of renegotiation. Combining drawing and painting, she builds scenes charged with tension, humour and desire, populated by objects that seem to abandon their function and figures that feel at once mysterious, theatrical and strangely familiar. Drawing on references that range from contemporary science fiction and British folklore to 17th- and 18th-century erotica, pre-agricultural mythology, early Renaissance altarpieces and Flemish kitchen scenes, Jessie Makinson folds together diverse visual histories to create vivid, unstable narratives. Her paintings are marked by bold colour, erotic energy and a sense of ritual, where characters embrace, plot, perform and disrupt expectation. Plucking themes from British pop culture and mixing them with recognisable American motifs, Makinson creates charged new contexts in which power is fluid and desire is active rather than passive. The result is a universe that is sensuous, mischievous and psychologically complex, inviting viewers into scenes that surprise, delight and unsettle in equal measure.