Hashimoto Contemporary SF is pleased to present The Chaos Aesthetic, a solo exhibition by Oakland-based artist Jessica Hess. Her new body of work, rendered in oil on canvas, explores abstraction of architecture and landscape through decay.
Working from meticulously shot reference images the artist takes while exploring each location, Hess augments each composition by adding and subtracting textures, plant life and objects to create hyperreal scenes of dilapidated yet beautiful locales. Hess takes the viewer on a journey to remote and often inaccessible spaces in flux. The delineation between indoor and outdoor spaces become ambiguous and disorienting, interrupted by decaying structures, colorful graffiti, and natural interjection.
Imbued with the acknowledgment that each subject is ephemeral and shifting, Hess presents graffiti-laced landscapes as “unconventional museums showcasing dense collections of street art and graffiti” akin to eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century salon and gallery paintings. The inclusion of the artist's “anonymous collaborators”, whether it be nature, architecture or graffiti writers, preserves and reveres the chaotic.
Please join Hashimoto Contemporary and Jessica Hess for the opening night of The Chaos Aesthetic, on May 4th with an evening reception from 6 pm to 9 pm. The exhibition will be on view through May 25th.
