Reviews / Awards

 

Mortal Puppet Show (for sale, please enquire)

Acrylic on canvas

1.5mx1.5m 

 Finalist COCA (Centre of contemporary Art Awards) Christchurch 

Finalist Adam NZ Portrait Awards 

Tariti Te Ao Maraki (nee Hiroki) (Private collection)

The Block NZ - television series feature 

'Kowhai'

1.5x1.5m

(Private collection)

Honorable mention - New York Art competitions 'The Madonna Reimagined' competition 2023

1mx1m

For Sale through Agora Gallery, New York 

 

 

 

Prime Minister Helen Clark and list MP and East Coast candidate Moana Mackey admire a painting by emerging young Gisborne artist Jess Jacobs (centre), who was commissioned to paint all the murals and artworks for Portside Hotel.

 

Emerging young Gisborne artist Jess Jacobs yesterday presented Prime Minister Helen Clark a lasting momento of her latest visit to Gisborne, which included a brief tour of the city's first international class hotel.

Jess was commisioned to paint all the original artworks for the Portside Hotel development.

 

Series has a surrealist edge

Gisborne Herald, Thurs Oct 11, 2007, Kristine Walsh

 

JESS Jacobs was commissioned to do a series of just eight garden paintings, but it was a project that blossomed. The result is an exhibition of close to 30 works the artist will launch next week at wharfside venue Marine View. And the title of the show clearly pinpoints from whence her inspiration came. Most works in the Tiromoana: The Professor's Garden installation are based on photographs Jacobs took at the Wainui hilltop garden established by Professor Jack Richards.

 

There is already an other-worldly type feel to many of the brilliantly-coloured works, largely because of the tropical imagery - inspired by the artist's links to Samoa - represented within. "Plus there are lots of sculptural pieces in the garden and that adds a sense of surrealism," Jacobs says from her inner-city studio. By permission of the owner, the original commissioned works - an eight-piece document depicting a wander through the garden - will be made available in a series of limited edition prints, all richly inked on canvas. There are also around another dozen pieces in the garden series, as well as a quartet of diminutive bird paintings, each tiny figure set against a dramatic black background.

Possibly the most dominant pieces, though, will be the two folding room dividers Jacobs has completed in time for the exhibition. One, Sacred, invokes a retro feel with its native birds upon spindly branches, all against a backdrop of brilliant green. And on the reverse of the four panels she has etched in gold text, exploring the place of humans on the earth and their obligations to it.

The other divider, Colonisation, is an ode to Samoa, to which Jacobs has both artistic and ancestral links. In gold paint against a black background, the front panels show a colonial ship putting in at a Samoan harbour. On the reverse, there are iconic images of contemporary Samoa - monolithic churches, baskets, produce, wildlife and the country's exploding fl ora. "I really liked the idea of presenting my art in a form that can be used in a practical way," Jacobs said of the room dividers. "It is just another way of getting the images and messages across."

 

Operations Manager, SuperGrans Tairawhiti Trust 2023