Jessica Watts is an artist based in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. More than just an oil painter, she is known for her focus on materials and craftsmanship. Her works are a celebration of process, and are completely hand made, from start to finish. She employs a highly individual visual language, painting on backgrounds from wallpaper to cement to Australian hardwood veneers, creating an enchanting world where women with poetic tattoos are adorned in flowers and colourful birds perch and preen.
Her popular Pretty Boys are a fun, anthropomorphic series that delight in seeing the human in the birds around us. Assigning human traits to non-humans activates the part of the brain involved in social behavior and drives our emotional connection with animals and inanimate objects. Pretty Boy has more than one mirror in his bedroom, he chooses cocktails over beer and he’s never been camping in his life.
Jessica received a Bachelor of Design with Hons & the University Medal from the University of Technology Sydney before a long career working as a multi-award winning advertising art director, including working for a decade in New York. She has been a full time artist since 2010. In 2017 she teamed up with Tokyo art dealer Rocky Degawa and together they have staged many successful solo shows at the prestigious Bunkamura Gallery in Tokyo and throughout Japan. Jessica is also represented by Eclectic Gallery in London. She works in her loft studio in the company of her wonky blue-eyed dog Kevin.
