Jes Zilla

jeszilla.com

The layered textures in her art are influenced by different facets of her life and travels. Throughout her extensive travels in Latin America, she has been inspired by modern works steeped in history and a sense of identity. Jes loves the expressive raw hand of street artists as well as the new modern masters like Basquiat and Cy Twombly. And she is certainly influenced by a 25+ year career in UX where she specializes in the design of large-scale, complex software. But mostly Jes is influenced by information and data…

Jes Zilla is a largely self-taught artist who works primarily in two different types of media: traditional acrylic/mixed-media on canvas and digital art that frequently features her photography - both film and digital. She lived in Texas most of her life. Austin was home until the summer of 2020 when she made the bold move to the Detroit area during a global pandemic. She has found in Detroit a resurgence in art that parallels her own. Creating fine art was largely dormant in her life for over 20 years. Early in the lockdown during the global Covid pandemic, something awoke in Jes and she has been producing art regularly since.

Jes adds a storytelling element using data-visualization to all of her work - there are clues about people, ideas, words, and dates in every piece. She invites her audience to find their own stories in the complex textures and data elements — it may be a mystery to solve or instant recognition. Hand-drawn lines act as conversation. Shapes act as snapshots of moments in time. The use of black represents an infinite, hopeful depth.