Present Myth, Future Fantasy
Solo MFA Thesis Show at the USC Roski School DTLA Arts District
Public Opening Reception May 6th at 7pm feat DJ Tyler Boudreaux
Exhibition dates May 5-14
About the Exhibition:
Los Angeles-based artist Jessica Taylor Bellamy explores the tension of living at the edge of a precarious paradise. Primarily working with oil painting, Bellamy also incorporates screen printing, animation, and video installation into her practice. Her work functions as collages that intend to deconstruct idealist narratives by exploring the political, social, and ecological implications of a false promise of paradise and false notions of progress. Through a critical and loving approach, Bellamy examines the phenomenological experience of the California landscape and proposes that we reimagine our relationship to the environment and examine the social structures that strain it. Bellamy creates layered compositions of overlapping and intersecting representations of culture, history, plant species, and sun phases that result in dream-like narratives or windows that give form and visibility to unseen or alternative possibilities.
This exhibition is curated in collaboration with Lauren Guilford, writer, curator, and art historian based in Los Angeles. She is a candidate in the USC Roski Masters in Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere Program where she is researching alternative art spaces.
About the Artist:
Jessica Taylor Bellamy is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting and video. Guided by eco-phenomenology, Bellamy considers the shifting ecology of Los Angeles and the devastating effects of climate change—fire season (heat and drought), pollution, environmental racism (the politics of shade). Her thesis exhibition, Present Myth, Future Fantasy, opens in May 2022 and will feature painting, video projection installation, and sculpture, exploring themes of utopia><dyopita, human><nature, and the collapsing of time in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in Political Science and is an MFA candidate at the USC Roski School of Art. Recently, Bellamy has shown her work in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Hong Kong including a solo, exhibition in Los Angeles curated by Storm Ascher and a site-specific installation on Catalina Island. Jessica grew up in Whittier, CA, and lives & works in Los Angeles.