Exploring the Los Angeles Landscape with Jessica Bellamy
My next interview is with Jessica Bellamy, a painter based in Los Angeles. Jessica creates her own dream-like worlds inspired by the California landscape - composed of vibrant sunsets, palm trees burst into flames or fashioned as bouquets, and highway signs with political messages. In this interview, Jessica discusses the American dream that brought her family from Cuba and the midwest to L.A, and how she explores and reshapes the idea of a Western paradise in her own work.
Hi Jessica! Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
I grew up in Whittier, California in the 90’s with my mom just outside of Los Angeles and have lived in LA my entire life. I was exposed to a lot of art early on and I always wanted to be an artist, but I didn’t do any formal training in oils until I got to college at USC and took an intro to studio painting class. I ended up minoring in painting and I’ve stuck with the medium since then. I come from an artistic family and while no one would self-describe as an artist everyone loves working with their hands. My mother and grandfather in particular always went above and beyond to foster and support my creativity.
How has your work shifted and evolved over the years?
My work has become more about building worlds from my point of view and trusting that my ideas are enough. I have embraced being more experimental in the studio, while at the same time choosing to fully test out ideas for paintings multiple times, giving different elements a chance and working iteratively. Even though I would say I’m a relatively “quick” oil painter, nothing is fast with this medium, so having the patience to fully explore an idea from every angle means there is more room for small, generational evolutions and my work ends up more cohesive with each piece almost referencing another. This has helped build natural series, which is something that a few years ago was difficult for me to approach in an organic way.
I love when I know an artist by their hand, color choices, or framing even when they paint vastly different series. I didn’t see that in my early work and I look forward to continuing to move in that direction.
Palm trees are a recurring theme in your work - whether they are painted in rainbow hues, bursting with flames, or perhaps even viewed through a metal fence. How does the California landscape impact your work?
I’ve built a sort of visual rolodex that I can visit in my work that is uniquely western and Californian. My paintings are usually developed from a note, title, or phrase that comes to me while navigating my way through life in Los Angeles. The compositions are dream-like visions of the world around me that give form to unseen, often absurdly humorous or unsettling narratives that lie beneath the landscape of mundane things: shaggy palm trees, excessive parking signs, eccentric architecture, and sunset views from the freeways. As I explore and define my perspective as a mixed-race millennial woman, I use the familiarity and comfort of California landscapes and aesthetics to connect shared visual references with the mood of chaotic unrest that is undeniable in our shared historical moment. Presenting an intensified view of contemporary life that wavers between idealism and existential ambivalence and the identity of a place.
Recently, palm trees have become my most pervasive motif. By portraying them on fire or as alternative bouquets, for example, I attempt to recontextualize, individualize, and personify this highly recognizable form. When I see the trees in reality I think of the California dream that the palms represent. That version of the American dream drew my family to Los Angeles from both the Midwest and Cuba in the 1930s and 1960s, promising paradise and urban oasis, visually encompassing so much of the cultural aspersions of a city for a century which my generation is re-inventing.
Your paintings also depict cars, highways, and street signs with phrases such as, "The World is Yours," or "There is No Threat." Can you tell me a bit about the narratives you create in your work?
Replacing text seen in reality with phrases that can be applied more universally and linked to philosophy or maximums helps me build worlds. Usually it's to comment explicitly on political and current events, slightly subverting what’s depicted, such as a neon motel sign reading “The World is Yours”, or a newspaper where the headlines are dire but not too far from our current reality. Most recently I used my favorite quote of the 2010’s “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” in place of freeway signs, above cars on the 405. Dropping a propaganda-less political quote in the public space where it would never be found in reality, with a dreamy sky framing the text helps create paintings that evoke familiarity and strike a lighthearted tone about a world gone wrong. The piece Tropical Meltdown “There is no Threat” was an actual sign in Hawaii in 2018 during the false North Korea missile alert incident. The exact electronic freeway message flashed for a few hours and was necessary to end hysteria but I saw it as interesting language even without context and as the news cycles through the phrase can be applied to almost anything at all.
In addition to painting on canvas, you also paint on shaped panels that you cut from wood. What led you to paint on different surfaces?
The first iterations of the panels were all traditional canvas paintings, and some were not getting the message across that I wanted, so I needed a new approach to the medium. I also get excited when I see irregularly shaped canvases or panels and I wanted to learn to be more self-sufficient by building up my woodworking skills (thanks YouTube!) so that I could get even more imaginative with my work and not need to rely on mass manufactured objects. It also adds some instant gratification to the process, since the shape is such an important part of the finished piece I immediately have a tone to the work before priming. I think moving to wood panels for certain pieces makes a painting assert its two dimensionality more and touches on it becoming a symbol or an icon, like with the flame-shaped panel piece, Chaotic Good Sunset Palms (Catch this Bouquet).
When did you join Instagram, and how has it impacted your art career?
I joined Instagram in 2012. Sometime around 2017 art started to become more frequent in my posts and by 2018 art was the majority. So many opportunities, and sales, and even inspiration has come from Instagram and I see it as an invaluable tool that helps fuel my art practice.
Instagram is how Superposition Gallery and I connected and that led to two group shows in the past year where I’ve been able to meet with other artists IRL and practice my public speaking skills with artist talks and panels. It’s also helped a few collectors find me serendipitously. In the last year I’ve used it as another way to organically connect with art consultants and curators, making it easier to reach out with a cold email inviting them for a studio visit because you’ve seen their Instagram coverage of them doing the same with other artists.
What goals and aspirations do you have as an artist?
This year I want to do more installation-based work, and work with our urban “nature” in Los Angeles. I would love to create public art as well. I’ve realized that pursuing something that offers lifelong learning is what is most important to me as an artist. I see myself painting and art making for the rest of my life, there isn’t much else that I can say that about.