Jessica Hess often tells people she paints landscapes, but “landscape” doesn’t quite
sum up the documentary function of her work. Her oil paintings are not
about the buildings and the trees, but rather an ephemeral, fragile
moment: when graffiti gets put up on city walls. The future of a piece
of graffiti is unstable — it could be buffed or tagged the next day. Its
longevity is unpredictable. Hess memorializes these ephemeral artistic
expressions, choosing broken-down, tagged-up locales that inspire her in
her daily surroundings in Oakland and San Francisco. Curator Ken Harman
shared a story about how a group of people were moved by Hess’s work
when they saw the tag of their deceased friend in one of her paintings —
an insignia that had heretofore been eradicated from the walls on which
it was painted. His presence lives on in her work.
For her current show at Hashimoto Contemporary, she worked with one of the graffiti artists whose work frequently pops up in her paintings: GATS.
An acronym for Graffiti Against the System, GATS is one of the Bay
Area’s most well-known and prolific taggers. His portion of the show
includes installations elements that were seemingly lifted off the
street: Scaffolding with his signature character spray painted on it
occupies the center of the gallery, while etchings and paintings on the
walls use traffic signs
as canvases. In addition to a collaborative piece the two artists did
together, his work pops of in one of Hess’s paintings, bringing the show
full circle.
Jessica Hess and GATS’s show at Hashimoto Contemporary is on view through May 24.
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