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Australian Artist for the Malaysia-Australia Visual Arts Residency 2010
Jessica Watson embroidering 'Rain Falling on Butterflies', a work for Art for Nature 2010 'SURVIVAL'. Photo by Noor Mahnun Mohamed.
Jessica Watsons’ work is a fusion of 2-dimensional textile art and wearable art. Her interest in the human body, both covering and depicting it, has taken her into the fields of art, costume design and fashion.
Surface, identity and contact are reoccuring themes in her artwork and as a textile artist she subconsciously investigates the boundaries imposed upon textile art from the fine art world. Working predominantly in series, Watson develops and enhances her ideas through repetition and scale.
In 2003 Watson spent three months in the Australian Snowy Mountains where she developed embroidered screenprints based on the squiggly bark eucalyptus for the joint exhibition wouldwork. In 2006 and 2007 she travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, dividing her time between ritzy Ipanema and the Rio slums developing the embroidered series Sketches from Rio based on the salespeople of Rio de Janeiro's beaches and the traditional ‘plein-air’ sketch.
Her interest in textiles, the human body, clothing and movement has also led her into costume design where she has worked with childrens productions, musicals and provocative political drama/dance with Swedish, African and Iraqi choreografers.
Watson started her visual art studies at Newcastle University in 1995 and in 1996 travelled to Sweden as an exchange student. In 2000 she graduated with a Masters Degree in Textile Art from Gothenburg University, School for Design and Crafts in Sweden (HDK). Since graduating she has been exhibiting in Australia and internationally.
She has been teaching fashion drawing and screenprinting for the past seven years and is represented at the Gothenburg City Arts Council, in private art collections and has received the Swedish Artists Associations (KRO) One Year Artists Working Grant and the Gothenburg City Arts Grant among other grants and prizes for her work.
The patterns, colours and textures of plants inspire me; enlarging these to create compositions I move the identity of the plant into another context. I have previously worked with cold climate plants and am now interested in looking at the tropical plants of Rimbun Dahan and what they reveal. I aim to continue exploring the themes of identity, surface and contact using the garden plants of Rimbun Dahan and Malaysian butterflies as sources of inspiration.
Curriculum Vitae
2000
1998
1996-97
1995-96 |
Education
Master of Fine Arts and Applied Crafts HDK, Göteborgs Universitet
Bachelor of Textiles, HDK, Göteborg Universitet
Undergraduate Student, HDK, Göteborg Universitet
Undergraduate Student, Newcastle University Australia |
2009
2008
2008
2006
2005
2004
2003
2001
2001
2000
2000
2000
2000
1999
1999
1999
1998
1998
1996 |
Exhibitions
Sketches from Rio, Art in Motion, Frank & Ernest
Sketches from Rio, Galleri mitt i centrum, Gothenburg, Sweden
Sketches from Rio, Galleri Mosebacke, Stockholm, Sweden
Broderia Fantasia, Floras Rike Gallery, Botanical Gardens, Gothenburg
Butterfly Stomach & Hunter, Gothenburg City Library
Hunter, Galleri D Lyx, Malmö, Sweden
wouldwork, Knot Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Watt Space, Newcastle, Australia
Omfång, 25m2 Stockholm, Formargruppen Malmö, Galleri 5 Visby
flickers, Gothenburg, Sweden
Talente, Munich, Germany
Omfång, Galleri Koch, Stenungsund, Sweden
Masters Exhibition, Rohsska Museét, Gothenburg, Sweden
Under det blå tacket, Magnus & Magnus, Gothenburg, Sweden
Centrum, Frölunda Kulturhuset, Frölunda, Sweden
HDK 150 år, Rohsska Muséet, Gothenburg
Karin and Carl Larsson, Nordiska Museét, Stockholm, Sweden
Suecos, Centro Cultural La Santa, Barcelona, Spain
Den Lilla Svarta, Rohsska Muséet, Gothenburg
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2006-09
2004-09
2005
2005
2004
2004
2003
2003
2002
2002
2001
2001
2000
2000
2000
2000
2000 |
Employment/Productions
Teaching, Fashion Drawing, Art & Design, Tillskarakademin in Gothenburg, Sweden
Teaching, Fashion drawing, Screen Printing, Art Collage, Folkuniversitetet, Sweden
Downup & updowN, Costume Design & Makeup, Tortosa Theatre Festival, Spain
’Objector’, Bachelor Examination, Borås school of Textiles, Sweden
Screenprinting workshop, Stenebyskolan, Sweden
Costume for the stage, Assistent, Lindköpings University & Vadstena Akademin
Drömmar (Dreams), GöteborgsOperan, Costume Design, Costumer & Makeup
The Lion King, Beading, Anthony Philips Costumes, Sydney, Australia
Howard Katz & Holy Day, Breaking Down, Sydney Theater Company
Downup & updowN, Dance production, Costume Design
Infra Exhibition, Installation, The Gothenburg Museum, Sweden
pillow room, ’Noll Vision’, Trollhättan, Roads and Trafic Authority, Sweden
The Merry Widow, Costume Design & Millinary, Arbisteatern, Norrköping
Gående bord (Walking Table), Dance production, Costume Design, Göteborg
Lethe-The Urban mytoplay, Costume Design, Gothenburg Culture night
flickers, Costume Design & Production Management
flickers, Gothenburg Dance and Theater Festival & Hedens Lustgård Opening Ceremony |
2009
2008
2005
2002
2000
2000
2000
2000
1999
1999
1999
1999
1996
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Grants
Konstnärsnämnden (Swedish Artists’ Committee) One year Artists’ Working Grant
Företagarna (Association for small businesses in Sweden)
Konstnärsnämnden (Swedish Artists’ Committee)
Gothenburg City Arts Grant
Markarna Lindeqvists Scholarship
Estrid Ericsons Scholarship – group
Slöjdskolans Scholarship
Anna Ahrenbergs Scholarship
Goteborg&Co sponsorship
Stiftelsen Erik och Lily Philipsons Minnesfonds’ Scholarship
Theodor och Hanne Mannheimers fund
Slöjdskolans Scholarship
University of Newcastle Student Exchange Scholarship |
2008 |
Represented
Gothenburg City Arts council |
2007
2000
1999
1998
1996 |
Prizes
Golden needle, Täcklebo Embroidery Academy, Sweden, silver needle prize
World Wide Wool, Australia
Near Distance, Lochem, The Netherlands, 2nd prize
Fashion Design Competition, Barcelona, Spain, 1st prize
Hunter Institute of Technology, Mardi Gras Costume Design, 3rd prize |
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