Jessica Jane Charleston, Nightsong, CULT Aimee Friberg
Mural installation at Cult Aimee Friberg Gallery in San Francisc by Jessica Jane Charlston
This review is part of our “Artist on Artist” series
Adam Feibelman is a working artist living in San Francisco with his wife and two young daughters. He attended an artist talk at CULT where Charleston was interviewed remotely and he wrote this review reflecting on the exhibition's meaning and some of the themes that resonated with him. The exhibition closed on September 3rd.
By: Adam Eli Feibelman
As one enters CULT Aimee Friberg Gallery in San Francisco, for the Jessica Jane Charleston exhibition entitled Nightsong, the beautiful space narrows into the oil on linen canvas works of Jessica Jane Charleston, an artist/painter from London. The exhibition includes a wide range of works from ink drawings on 16" x 11" paper, to 15 or so canvases 4' x 3' and smaller, as well as a large central mural piece to tie the room together.
The paintings exhibit an ease of drawing and a comfort with the materials, enabling Charleston to express herself in a way that testifies to the culmination of a focused studio practice. The colors range from reds to blues, purples, and blacks, and sometimes yellow, that wane from bold to cloudy. The subject matter is herself, her hands, and the concept of change. With such a simplistic sentiment, the paintings expand on the story of herself, diving into the complexities of life and the duty of her hands to help her find peace, all while being a mother and wife. Being a young girl with dreams of animals and their accompaniment through life, and their symbolism. Becoming a self-determined woman whose needs and desires push her toward whatever adulthood means, while wrestling the metaphorical snakes within.
She Talks to Snakes and they Guide Her, 2025, Acrylic on canvas,16 x 12 1/8 in, 40.8 x 30.8 cm
Then, facing the metamorphosis of becoming a mother, one must turn and face one's past and come to terms with the change endemic to the process.
The Horses in the Middle of the Night, in the Middle of the Woods, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 79 7/8 in, 101.5 x 203 cm
Although the colors utilized can come off as a bit melancholy, at first, with time you realize they hypnotize you into a dream like experience, where the imagery sits in relative comfort, where all ages of Jessica are speaking to you about what it's like, to have your horse (spouse I assume) rest its loyal, loving, yet heavy head upon her chest while their colt gestates. The woman's eyes are wide open as she contemplates the future and the past dreamily. While the other two rest. The scene of relative peace has abrupt gestural lines of color as well, that seem to give a nod to the anxiety and nerves that a body in flux might inspire. There is also a guttural feeling about the work, becoming aware and dealing with how animalistic and raw the process of pregnancy and birth can be. Foreshadowing for the painting next to it in the exhibit, (Image above), where the female figure splits, two Jessicas, one body, pulling in different directions, all while the horse is embraced seemingly out of its own need.
Red Roses, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 43 7/8 x 34 in, 111.5 x 86.4 cm
Other paintings in the exhibition also featured her as two, and sometimes three. Leaning into the concept that she contains several versions of herself, with differing needs, all while the surrounding figures express their needs. Sometimes she does not want to be touched, but the baby needs it. Sometimes the husband wants to be touched, but she's all touched out. Sometimes the baby doesn't want to be held, and she wants nothing more. The complexity of a new family exemplified all while the global pandemic changed the city around them. Other paintings show her two selves enjoying each other's company; they ride the bird with hand wings together, and they comfort each other, because they have the same agenda, of taking care of Jessica.
Blue Flight, 2025,Acrylic on canvas, 44 x 33 7/8 in, 111.6 x 86 cm
This exhibition comes at a point in our American context where our government is actively taking away civil rights from women and restrictively legislating their healthcare. Although these works seem to have no other intention than to detail what the artist experiences in life, in her body (which should not be political), there is a contextual political undercurrent. The force majora seeks to blur over these details, to dull the personhood of women, and remove the uncomfortable, so as not to deal with the reality of anatomy and autonomy. These works, through their confident voice, counter that, and bring the viewer into a vulnerable and intimate space where reality can not be avoided, and no amount of gloss can affect life's matte finish.
Daily ink drawings, installation view
The paintings contain a certain haze that most new parents will recognize, where self-doubt, extreme fatigue, and ultimate curiosity open up into a new experience of the world where one must come to terms with all aspects of one's self, then realize you are learning at the same clip as the colt. You draw together, you eat together, you grow together, all of you, each of you. Finally, a contentment is painted as a two-headed figure holding a symbol of peace, the bird, the art. Exemplified nicely with the daily ink drawings pictured above, Jessica's paintings tell her story, but also open up a broader emotional box for the viewer to not just consider the person standing in front of you, but also consider who they were, where they have been, and who they'll be tomorrow.
