Jessica Pearless

mothermother is delighted to announce that Jessica Pearless has crafted a collection of bespoke Wearable ABSTRAXIONS - a series of tunic-style garments to adorn this years group of mothermother artists exhibiting at the Aotearoa Art Fair. The artists, along with Pearless, will each wear one of her exquisite tunics at the opening preview incorporating the spirit of a divine happening.

Jessica's Wearable ABSTRAXIONS are created to honour artists; the world’s artists build, and live in. They are made from specially sourced, repurposed textiles, gathered over a lifetime of textile collecting.

A key concept of Pearless’ artistic practice is the concept of the artist as ‘a seeker, searcher or archiver of knowledge in search of self realisation and understanding of the world’.  While the fabric works take on the form of a garment at the happening, Jessica considers each work a painting - created under the same conditions that her geometric abstract paintings are realised - to illustrate the realisation of a personal search for logic and understanding of the state of being or the experience of knowing through abstraction.  

Each work is activated through movement, space and exhibition away from the gallery wall on the body. Created with a nod to historical fashion, they are reminiscent of Emilie Flöge's loose fitting and free flowing garments she designed in the early 1900s. Flöge revolutionised the way women dressed with rebellious new silhouettes, ornate fabrics, and exquisite detailing with sensuous complexity that inspired Gustav Klimt, who in turn immortalised into paintings. In referencing Flöge, Jessica honours the essence of the shapeshifter, the muse, the entrepreneur and the Avant Garde in this series, which runs parallel to her ongoing investigation into abstraction in art and women’s place within it.

Jessica Pearless (b. 1980) is a Tāmaki Makaurau based visual artist and arts leader who holds Bachelor of Fine Arts (2003) and Master of Fine Arts (Hons) (2011) from Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland (2011).

Jessica has exhibited extensively in public, private and commercial art spaces throughout New Zealand and internationally. Her artistic research in abstraction centres on painting, site responsive installation, sculpture. She is the Kaitiaki | Guardian of The ABSTRAXT ABSTRAXT manifestations.

Jessica received including the Inaugural Artists Alliance Artist in Residence (2011); a AMP National Scholarship (2011); Merit Award, The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award (2013 & 2014). In 2014 she was a Finalist in the Westpac Women of Influence Awards in the Arts Category. In 2020 Jessica was named on the University of Auckland ’40 Under 40’ list as an Influencer.

Alongside her creative practice, Jessica is mother to two sons, Kaitohu | Co-Director of NORTHART public art gallery in Northcote, Auckland and Kaitohu | Director of Paragon Matter Art Services, specialising in valuations and mentoring in the arts sector.