- the sharpener
- zine of the month
- indie artist in residence
- the archive
- bp by issue
- all excerpts
- all features
- all zines
- search reviews
- resources
- topics
blog entry
Jesi the Elder
Once, when I lived in Glasgow, I had a friend named Liz-e who lived just down the street. Liz-e's taste was legendary among her friends-nothing was too kitschy, crowded or colouful for her. She was also painfully quiet and shy, except when she was drunk, which was almost always. We all adored her. The website by Toronto artist Jesi the Elder, www.jesi.ca, reminds me very much of Liz-e: with an aesthetic so wildly and bafflingly its own, how do you not fall in love? Visitors are greeted with a pulsing brain flanked on either side by disembodied hands holding blood-red candles, while lightening flashes in the background. Why? I have no idea. Jesi's illustrations and videos (her latest project is for the band DDMMYYYY) are equally absurd—all bright colours and weird concepts, like one very sad Ninja Turtle standing alone in a snowglobe, holding a book whose cover reads, "Noel." You laugh, almost in spite of yourself. Her bio doesn't make any sense either. We learn: "Jesi started making art at an early age, molding...contour drawings of people she hated on pavement floors, in hopes that they would go lay there and die. She worked mostly in pastels." What the fuck does that mean? Don't know, but I see a lot of fancy Canadian art at my day job, and almost none of it is this much fun.
Kathy Friedman
Link
posted: January 8, 2009