Cage Free Contemporaries: Jessica Beeman

ladies, gentlemen and Cage Free Junkies:
here's the scoop, yo.  between Sauce's extended hours at her place of work and my frantic search for the right bridge to live under, we haven't made a lot of new work.  SO i came up with the brilliant idea to promote some of our incredibly talented friends.  for free!  i know, i'm a great guy.  Sauce is a lucky woman.


the first edition of Cage Free Contemporaries features Jessica Beeman, a fellow printmaker from the University of Mississippi.

this kid is talented.  her thesis work is really impressive.  the line work and attention to detail in the imagery are just spectacular.  her artist statement and each print's title add a somber, introspective  note to the work that draws you in. check out her artist statement:

"I feel an attraction to abandoned buildings.  They have outlasted their usefulness.  They are dirty and decayed.  I find a voyeuristic thrill in being the first in years to enter their bodies and explore their insides.  That thrill gives way to anxiety when discovering time's dismantling effects on the structure.  I am reminded of my own body, and its inevitable decay.

The exposed supports of this building were like bones.  The flesh had long rotted away.  The wood was cracked and weathered, and the wrought iron beams were rusted through.  The entire structure seemed to teeter on the edge of collapse.  It is hollow save a few disintegrating boxes and pieces of trash.  It appeared the soul had long departed from this stripped skeleton, though I could still feel it lingering there.

Rather than produce perfectly accurate representations of the building itself, I create portraits of the melancholy and heaviness of the atmosphere inside.  The images depict the moments in time frozen within the walls, and the profound loneliness that thickens the air.  It is a sobering fact that our bodies are just as vulnerable to the passage of time.  My prints are reminders of the ephemerality of our lives and the ease with which we are forgotten."

Jessica named her thesis exhibition Entropy.

she presented her prints in diptychs, meaning two prints share a similar name and are related to one another, most commonly by subject matter. 

the first diptych is called Alienation.

the next diptych is called Dereliction.

her next diptych is called Deterioration.

the final diptych is called Entropy, and shares its name with her exhibition.

i love these prints.  i think that my favorite element has to be the line quality.  at first glance, the lines seem rigid and precise, but on closer inspection, they come to life.  each line, though tight has great gestural quality.  the aquatint (shading) on these prints is testament to the time and effort that Jessica put into these pieces.  

i know what you're thinking.  and yeah, i think they're for sale. but you should probably ask her. here's her email address: jessbeeman@gmail.com

tell her ross sent you.  she'll know what it means.