Featured Artist: Jessica M. Hancock

Jessica Marie Hancock (formerly Springman) is a visual artist producing highly detailed drawings with strong geometric elements.

She received her Bachelor’s degrees in Communication and Art from Westminster College of Salt Lake City in 1998. Interested in the concepts of design and spatial relationships, her work explores the idea of abstraction, as it relates to aesthetic uniformity and universal balance.

Her artistic style is very clean and has been described in many ways, but the favourite is “Vennism” - breaking apart multivariate reality into constituent and relational elements, as separated and nested 2D representations.

Everything Jessica draws is done entirely by hand using only a compass and ruler as guides.

Early in the artists life, Jessica noticed that she was able to draw better than most of her classmates. Even before realising (or really caring) how art was used privately or commercially, people would complement her on the ability of the work she produced, labelling it a “gift,” and emphatically encouraging her not to waste it. Later on understanding and appreciating the “art world” and as more and more people started asking if the work was available for sale, realising the potential to make a life with the “gift.”

Contemporary art is typically distinguished by the lack of a uniform organising principle, ideology, or -ism. This freedom of expression gives voice to the varied and changing cultural landscape of identities, values, and beliefs that are rapidly emerging and converging worldwide today.

The art produced is highly sophisticated, very detailed and clearly ordered. It is not created to be interpreted as “sacred” or based in any way on the principals of mandala. There are similarities that people often point out, but that’s the abstract nature of her work, doing exactly what contemporary art is supposed to do - leave the viewer free to interpret the art from their own unique perspective - spatially, spiritually and emotionally. If they “see” answers to the mysteries of Life in her work, good for them.

Audiences also play an active role in the process of constructing meaning about works of art, especially in the contemporary sense. The viewer contributes to (and sometimes even completes) the artwork by offering his or her personal reflections, experiences, opinions, and interpretations. They can revel in the detail or focus on the overall composition. It doesn’t matter and THAT is what makes it art - It was made , but the second it is shared by Jessica, it becomes irrelevant and the viewer’s “self” take control.

Nothing in the universe is truly random and everything, however small, has a purpose. Jessica strives to express these personal truths in all of her art. Everything is created entirely by hand using only a ruler and compass as guides, rarely sketching and with no maths. The finished image is completely in Jessica’s mind. The challenge is figuring out how to faithfully render it on paper.

Jessica has been the focus of many solo exhibitions and included in over 65 art shows since 2013. She is the recipient of various honours and awards, including membership with the National Association of Women Artists (2017), a Distinguished Artist Award from ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal (2016) and the 2015-2016 Stutz Artist Association Studio Resident Award (Indianapolis, IN). She was also awarded one of 12 seats at the Butler [Indiana] University Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Symposium in 2016.

Jessica’s work was recently used by Pearl Drums, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Boy Scouts of America.

She has been published twice by Westminster John Knox Press and can be found in print circulations including ArtAscent, StudioVisit Magazine and Artblend Gallery’s “The Art Book 2019”.

She is represented by the Directory of Illustration, the Art Works Gallery (Cedar City, UT), the Evan Lurie Gallery (Carmel, IN) and the Artblend Gallery (Pompano Beach, FL).

Jessica is most proud of being accepted to the National Association of Women Artists, as a regular juried member, in November 2017. The NAWA is the oldest women’s fine art organisation in the country, founded in 1889 and is considered a pioneering organisation for the advancement of women in the arts. Notable past members she personally admires include Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and Cecilia Beaux. Through the NAWA her work is archived at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University and with the Smithsonian Institution.

www.jhancockart.com