Jessie Summa Russo is a mixed media painter, visual designer, and musician in West Seattle. She was born at the exact midpoint of ‘Generation X’ and raised by two artists in Somerville, Massachusetts. An asthmatic only child, she spent a lot of time drawing. Jessie studied printmaking and painting at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art & Design.
Statement
In describing my recent work, two people independently used the word palimpsest—something that has a new layer, aspect, or appearance that builds on its past and allows us to perceive parts of this past. This fits both literally and figuratively, as I often use my own decades-old etchings or drawings and my Grandma’s mundane scrapbook mementos as collage layers. Art can transform the sometimes fraught past into a more hopeful present with new meaning.
In January 2022, I began experimenting with the unique topography of oil and cold wax medium; it was love at first scrape. After building up a collage background layer on wood, I paint and etch with a palette knife and monotype and fingerpaint until the effect evokes a wall plastered with worn posters and ghost graffiti. I like to surprise viewers with recognizable fragments that only appear upon closer inspection—a face, a word, a pattern.
Lately, I've been most interested in exploring dreamscapes, belonging versus alienation, and transgenerational trauma through my painting. Yet I often don’t think about anything while I paint—and that is the primary joy of the process. Letting creative intuition take over is my favorite meditation practice.
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