She is deeply interested in the work of feminist speculative fiction and sci-fi writers, as well as the female subject in art history. The visual language in Jessie’s work is steeped in feminist symbolism. The woman are part of the landscape, physically imbued with its brooding, implacable presence. The bruised, miasmic underpainting seeps into the precisely articulated surface detail, creating a captivating dialogue between surface and depth the figures and the landscape. Jessie begins each new painting with a quick rough sketch directly onto the canvas and then begins applying layers of colour to build up the ground. In Jessie’s paintings, neither the landscape nor the female form will hold still for the gaze, crystallised or be tamed, instead existing in a defiant state of flux, becoming and unbecoming.
They glance back at the viewer, unfazed and unaffected by being looked at, and melt into their surrounding before they can be fully recognisaed and objectified. The women in Jessie’s paintings, part nature nymph, part futuristic android, part girl-next-door, are each defiantly feminine. Like reflections on the surface of a rippled pool, what is above and what is beneath become blurred and indistinguishable. In Jessie Makinson’s surreal paintings, female figures emerge and dissolve from the landscape in the same instance.
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