Jessie Emilie Art

I am a visual artist based in Calgary, Alberta. I hold a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia (2024) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alberta University of the Arts (2022). My work has been exhibited in galleries across Alberta and British Columbia.

My paintings explore femininity, sexuality, and embodiment through a deeply personal and painterly lens. I’ve long been drawn to the role of women in art history, particularly within the traditions of self-portraiture and the nude. My early work engaged with these themes alongside my own experiences with religious trauma and body image. A formative trip through Europe’s major art institutions deepened my fascination with archetypes like the reclining nude and the femme fatale, prompting me to reimagine these figures from a female perspective. The rhythm of everyday life equally inspired me. I observed there the slow mornings with coffee and cigarettes, the ease of conversation, and the after-work wine. That laid-back sensuality and quiet observation of the mundane continue to inform the emotional undercurrents of my work. At the center of my practice is the human form, often nude, contemplative, passive, or caught in moments of strange intimacy. My figures embrace contradiction: soft and heavy, beautiful and grotesque, still yet emotionally charged. Alongside the body, I often depict everyday objects, potted plants, sardines, and anchovies on plates, imbued with a quiet surrealism. These elements anchor my compositions in a reality that feels both familiar and uncanny. I create scenes that blur the line between fantasy and observation, where emotion saturates both figure and object, inviting the viewer into a world that is at once intimate, absurd, and emotionally dense.

Influenced by film noir, vintage cabaret, and the raw physicality of Lucian Freud, my work blends glamour with psychological tension. Each painting is a world of its own, shaped by emotional weight, painterly intuition, and an ongoing exploration of what it means to look, to be seen, and to construct a feminine presence on one's own terms.