Your shopping cart is empty.
Jess Aakre
Mixed Media Artist
Artist Bio
Hi! I’m Jess.
I’m an artist and an art educator. One of my greatest joys is sharing artwork and the experience of making art with others. I am a mixed-media artist who combines collage, paint, and dry media in small narrative artworks. I studied art and art education at Minnesota State University Moorhead. I graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Art in Art (emphasis in photography) and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education. After graduation, I began my career as a K-12 art educator and has been teaching full-time since 2011. I received a Masters of Art in Art Education from Boston University in 2018. My masters research project explored personal identity through visual art journaling practices. Learn more about art journaling in my blog The Visual Journal.
@jess.aakre_art.
Artist Statement
The foundation of my work is grounded in storytelling and developing a visual narrative… that builds a bridge between identity, history, time, and space. I focus on the female figure and a generalized female portrayal to showcase themes of home, familiarity, femininity, and everyday experiences. The work is mixed media. I layer vintage ephemera and drawings inspired by a collection of found photographs from the 1930’s and 1940’s with paint and other materials. The collage elements of the past are often juxtaposed with bright colors and floral motifs that are set in dreamy landscapes. I use acrylic or gouache paints to block in areas of land and space on top of the collaged papers. The figures are drawn and placed within the landscape. I use dry media, such as colored pencils and paint pens to add recurring objects such as houses, plants, and roots that float throughout each work. My intention is for viewers to feel transported to a different space and time. This artwork generates a reminder of the past while paying homage to what is comfortably familiar in all of us.
