Jessica Houston Art
American, b. 1970
Jessica Houston (MA, Columbia University) has traveled from pole to pole, using color and light to entangle and provoke questions related to our changing natural world, and our nature within it. She has created site-specific works for the NJ MOCA (NJ); the Castello di Corigliano (Puglia, Italy); and The Albany Airport (Albany, NY). Select exhibitions include Art Mûr Gallery, Montréal, Canada; The Hyde Collection Museum, Glens Falls, NY; and The Latimer House Museum, New York, NY. She has been invited to residencies at The Albers Foundation and CAMAC Center for Art, Science and Technology in France. Her works are funded by The Canada Council for the Arts and are in the collections of La collection Prêt d’œuvres d’art, Musée National Des Beaux-Arts du Quebec; Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), Montréal, Québec; Bank of Montréal, Toronto; and the Consulate General of Monaco, Montréal. She has lectured at The Art Institute of Florence; Columbia University; Concordia University; and OCAD University.to
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Artist: Jessica Houston
Dealer: Art Mûr
She dug out one more cell...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“She dug out one more cell just under the ice surface, leaving nearly a transparent sheet of ice like a greenhouse roof; and there, alone, she worked at sculptures...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
We were sledgehaulers
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Eight Adélie Penguins...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“Eight Adélie Penguins immediately came to greet us … They insisted on us going to visit Hut Point, where the large structure built by Captain Scott’s pa...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
instead of a narrow bight...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
we came in sight of the Barrier...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
When I was little more...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“When I was little more than a child my imagination was caught by a newspaper account of the voyage of the Belgica…”
Over the Edge of the World locates itself in the entangled lega...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
The little Yelcho
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
…last Thule of the South
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
"…last Thule of the South, which lies on our maps and globes like a white cloud, a void, fringed here and there with scraps of coastline, dubious capes, suppositious islands, headlan...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
A summary report...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“A SUMMARY REPORT OF THE YELCHO EXPEDITION TO THE ANTARCTIC, 1909-1910. Although I have no intention of publishing this report, I think it would be nice if a grandchild of mine, or somebody’s grandchild, happened to find it some day; so I shall keep it in the leather trunk in the attic, along with Rosita’s christening dress and Juanito’s silver rattle and my wedding shoes...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Exposed as our camp...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“Exposed as our camp was to every wind, we built no rigid structures above ground. We set up tents to shelter in while we dug a series of cubicles in the ice itself.”
Over the Edge ...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
The Second Flight
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
Aerial Exploration
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
Undercurrents
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
The Plume of Nationalism
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
Henson and Peary - Past Entanglements
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
Ghost in the Land
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Archival Paper, Magazine Paper
The Faraway Nearby
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
The Return Of The Sun
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
Capacity to Self-Organize
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
The Situation As It Is
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston has traveled from pole to pole—using photography, painting, oral histories and objects—to evoke natureculture entanglements. Her multimedia projects often include sit...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Glass, Mixed Media, Color
A Life Attuned To Larger Rhythms
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston has traveled from pole to pole—using photography, painting, oral histories and objects—to evoke natureculture entanglements. Her multimedia projects often include sit...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Paper
Letters to the Future – Antarctica (3019)
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a relic of Sir John Frankl...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
Loss of Profits Due to Scarcity (Antarctica)
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
Basic needs
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Collage of photographs and Pantone color swatches on paper
Suspended in a Sunbeam, is a series of mixed-media works that span Jessica Houston’s decade-long engagement with the Canad...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Mixed Media, Photographic Paper
Looking forward
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Collage of photographs and Pantone color swatches on paper
Suspended in a Sunbeam, is a series of mixed-media works that span Jessica Houston’s decade-long engagement with the Canad...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Mixed Media, Photographic Paper
Word World
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Collage of photographs and Pantone color swatches on paper
Suspended in a Sunbeam, is a series of mixed-media works that span Jessica Houston’s decade-long engagement with the Canad...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Mixed Media, Photographic Paper
This Wayward Floating Body
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
Ideas in Things (Antarctic Penisula)
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Text by Nancy Webb
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a reli...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Digital
It’s So Quiet You Can Hear Them Breathing
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception.
Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated.
The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Beyond Recall
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Our Own Faults, Our Own Failures
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Where These Ways Crossed One Another
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception.
Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated.
The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Where These Ways Crossed One Another
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception.
Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated.
The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Break
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Abstract Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Business As Usual
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Lay Bare
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Heritage Of All
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Mapped, Claimed, Evaluated
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Staking Claim
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
White Horizon
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
What Nations Come and Go
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Desire for Self-Determination
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
The Spaces We Breathe
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Scramble For Maritime Territory
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Unending Industry
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Set In Motion
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
Meet It Halfway
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
He...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Color
The Left Hand Points Toward Home
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a relic of Sir John Frankl...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Photographic Paper
Perceptible Changes Over Time
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a relic of Sir John Frankl...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Photographic Paper
Different Geographies, Different Histories
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
In Jessica Houston’s Afterward, Silence (Franklin’s Crewmen’s Grave, Beechey Island) a single pale gravestone stands on an otherwise desolate ashen shore – a relic of Sir John Frankl...
Category
2010s Contemporary Jessica Houston Art
Materials
Photographic Paper
Jessica Houston art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Jessica Houston art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue, purple, orange and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Jessica Houston in oil paint, paint, panel and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 21st century and contemporary and is mostly associated with the contemporary style. Not every interior allows for large Jessica Houston art, so small editions measuring 9 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of John Baker, Audrey Anastasi, and Amy Smith. Jessica Houston art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,100 and tops out at $7,200, while the average work can sell for $1,900.