December's Featured Artist!
Welcome to December’s Featured Artist! Meet Jessica Beatnik, a New Zealand software engineer and aspiring artist. Let’s learn about her creative journey!
Welcome, Jessica, tell us about yourself, when did you start creating?
Just your average modern artist, really. Equally tortured and narcissistic, Instagram feed packed with melancholy art and pictures of myself. I’m very drawn to the intersection of technology, the internet and social media personalities with self-expression and traditional art making, and I explore this through portraits and the process of sharing them online. My social media accounts and website are living galleries of the art I have made under my online alter-ego Jessica Beatnik.
In terms of style I work in an area between realism and cartoon, usually reaching for graphite, watercolor, black ink or a combination depending on the subject. Sometimes I work on digital projects, assisted by a background in digital design and software development.
My mother studied fine arts while I was very young, so I grew up with constant access to pencils, acrylics, sometimes screen-printing and lots of space to be creative. I have no formal fine arts training but learned enough from her to develop a passion for drawing.
Despite always enjoying art it wasn’t until a few years ago that I began taking it seriously and applying myself to it with more discipline, as well as taking a few paid commissions here and there and sharing my work online.
Are there any other mediums you like to dabble with?
I have two favourites (hope that isn’t cheating). The first is watercolor - all my favourite pieces have been watercolor, I just love how forgiving it is and the variety of shades and moods it can achieve. The other medium I enjoy playing with is digital animation. This is something I’m more self-conscious about, it’s more personal to me somehow which makes it difficult to make and share.
I feel the same way with my digital art. What artists, photographers or designers do look up to or aspire to be like?
I don’t think I’ve heard of Doja Cat, I’ll have to check her out. What else inspires you?
Women, computers, and birds (in no particular order).
Excellent! Do you have any special talents aside from your creativity?
I play the electric guitar!
Very cool! I wish I knew how to play an instrument. What are some rituals or processes you do while creating?
Working full time makes it difficult to find the time for practice, which is why I enjoy taking commissions and drawing for friends and relatives. By creating something for someone else there is more obligational motivation for working on and finishing work, so I try and work on projects which I can then gift or sell. Within this my process is just finding a comfortable place once a day to sit down with sharp pencils and clean paper.
Simplicity is important especially when you have other obligations. Tell me about some of the art shows you’ve been in. Have you sold any works?
I would love to see my work hanging somewhere public alongside other artists, but the thought of this also terrifies me. I have always wanted to work with other portrait and figure artists but whenever I come close impostor syndrome stops me going through with it.
However, Yes I have sold work, kind of. I portrait take commissions when I have the time and mental capacity for this type of work.
I’m sure you will do great once you take that step. What are your plans for the future of your skill?
If I continue to work at it every day then hopefully it will improve over time! They say it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at anything, so I guess I consider myself chipping away at those hours.
Jessica’s advice for emerging artists: “I feel as though I am an emerging artist myself which makes this difficult to answer! I would say above everything else that putting yourself before your art is important. Creating is incredibly satisfying but also demands that your personal life and/or mental health sometimes become subject matter. It’s important to separate yourself from your work when it’s personal and remember that you are far more precious than the masterpiece you’re making (as precious as that obviously is as well).”
To find more of Jessica’s work, visit:
Thank you for joining me for this month’s featured artist! Tune in next month for our next featured artist!
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