Friday, December 15th, 2023 (Every Friday and Saturday Until January 6th)
Address – 20 Railroad Ave., Stamford, NY 12167
Australian artist Jessie Lee Nash was the artist-in-residence at ARTS&REC for the months of October and November, 2023.
Nash was invited to come to Stamford after being hand-picked as one of ten artists to partake in TEAR, the Tracey Emin Artist Residency in Margate, UK. She arrived with a project idea based on the history of self-portraiture by female artists.
Working in her preferred palette of crimson, pink, and shades of muted reds, Nash created more than sixteen new paintings during her residency. While some reference the canon of female self portraiture more directly, others are only loosely inspired by the sujet, and are taken to more abstract and poetic ends.
An avid reader, Nash drew inspiration from one book in her Stamford studio, titled Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon. Like any great artist, Nash did not borrow, but stole—liberally, wholeheartedly, funnily, and at times reverentially.
Talking about her series, Nash describes the conflicting and constricting role of classical training, in which life drawing (the fundamental format of technical instruction of the classical academy) was for many centuries the domain of men (save for the female model) and copying great works from the past was considered another aspect of schooling, while female artists were relegated to still life and self-portraiture—painting whatever was close at hand, and at the same time, opening themselves up to accusations of narcissism and vulnerability.
By inserting herself into some of the most famous female self-portraits of modern art, Nash not only models herself on the classical training mechanisms of copying but also relives symbolically the doubt, anxiety, oppression, anger, and tenderness these artists express in their works. Nash asks in what space knowledge, empathy, veneration, and critique converge—a space that, she argues, is created by respect and, ultimately, love.
Jessie Lee Nash is the recipient of a Marten Bequest Fellowship by Creative Australia.