Jessica Taylor Bellamy Afterimage (butterfly), 2023 (detail)
About
Jessica Taylor Bellamy is an artist of juxtapositions: image and text, abstraction and figuration, handmade and mass produced, reality and fantasy, sunshine and noir. A native Angeleno, born and raised in Whittier to an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and an Afro-Cuban father, Bellamy’s practice considers this particular familial history to address notions of home, homeland, and landscape. The artist’s work is rooted in her observations living at the edge of a precarious paradise of shifting ecological tensions.
Jessica Taylor Bellamy (b. 1992, Whittier, CA) received an MFA from the Roski School of Art at the University of Southern California in 2022 and a BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California in 2014. A recent solo exhibition Endnotes for Sunshine marked her debut with representing gallery Anat Ebgi. Bellamy’s work has also been featured in exhibitions with UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA; GRIMM, New York, NY; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Make Room LA, Los Angeles, CA; Superposition Gallery hosted at Ochi Aux, Los Angeles, CA; and Lyles and King Gallery, New York, NY. Bellamy lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Unknown Landscapes: Jessica Taylor Bellamy Explores the Wetlands
Bellamy tells both macroscopic and microscopic stories about agency and oppression, collected and constructed from her lived experience and intimate observations. She helps instruct us on how we might feel the ground exhale. —Lauren Guilford
Frieze Week: Meet Four Artists Exploring the “Sunshine and Noir” of L.A.
“I have this huge pile of [newspapers] in my studio. A lot of the things I’m collecting are specific stories that might be about the climate or they might be visual indicators of change like temperature maps.” —Jessica Taylor Bellamy
Los Angeles is a city of paradoxes, where the fantasy and glamor of Hollywood often overshadows the grimy reality of daily life. Artist Jessica Taylor Bellamy, who grew up in Los Angeles, isn’t interested in the public’s obsession with celebrity. Instead, she tunes into the ordinariness of everyday occurrences and captures the strange truth of L.A.'s many contradictions. — Sahir Ahmed
Exploring Identity Through Place: Artist Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Love Letter To L.A.
"Conceptually, the screen plays a role as an interruption, as this actual veil that either you need to see past part of the painting to see what could be the rest of the screen or you need to confront the screen before seeing the rest of the painting." —Jessica Taylor Bellamy
Jessica Taylor Bellamy and Suzanne Lacy Channel the Topography of Los Angeles
Ahead of Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s first solo show, the emerging painter and multidisciplinary artist connects with her friend and mentor, the artist Suzanne Lacy, for a conversation about archiving the city, social practice, and car culture. — Annie Lyall Slaughter
Bonus Round: ‘Jessica Taylor Bellamy: Endnotes for Sunshine’
This native Angeleno juxtaposes stunning Southern California landscapes with daunting realities —displayed through newspaper clippings with headlines about the effects of catastrophes like global warming. —Steven Vargas
"I try to see if my color palette can escape the sunset, and it can’t. Even if it’s a sunset of smokey skies, and there’s a warning and it's bad, or polluted, that is something that is always going to come through in my work." —Jessica Taylor Bellamy
More concretely delineated but no less magical are two works by Jessica Taylor Bellamy, her ethereal resin and wire “Palm Veil” suspended over “Ecology IV: Horizons of Manic Striving and Photogenic Decline,” an impressive sculpture of a repurposed BMW bumper, video projected images of city scape, and dried wildflowers. —Diversions LA
The Art of Optimistic Nihilism: Jessica Taylor Bellamy’s Beautiful Destruction
Jessica Taylor Bellamy is finding the grotesque beauty in impending doom. Bellamy’s best pieces capture the unfettered 21st-century anxiety of living through ever-worsening ecological disaster, and all the contradictory feelings that come with it. —Wesley Stenzel
Rejection of the Monoculture – Statement And Paintings By Jessica Taylor Bellamy
"By portraying them on fire or as alternative bouquets, for example, I attempt to re-contextualize, individualize and personify this highly recognizable form." —Jessica Taylor Bellamy
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Warm Light." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 68" x 49" [HxW] (172.72 x 124.46 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1010_1676061848.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Land of the Sundown Sea." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 35 ¹⁄₂" x 31 ¹⁄₂" [HxW] (90.17 x 80.01 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1002_1676061862.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Proving Ground." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 35 ¹⁄₂" x 31 ¹⁄₂" [HxW] (90.17 x 80.01 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1001_1676061868.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Light of the Ledge." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 51" x 38" [HxW] (129.54 x 96.52 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1005_1676061874.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Floods in a Desert." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 35 ¹⁄₂" x 31 ¹⁄₂" [HxW] (90.17 x 80.01 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1004_1676061872.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Assisted Migration." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 31" x 24" [HxW] (78.74 x 60.96 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1009_1676061851.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "No Trick of Light." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 30" x 24" [HxW] (76.2 x 60.96 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1008_1676061855.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "Looking Backward." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 35 ¹⁄₂" x 31 ¹⁄₂" [HxW] (90.17 x 80.01 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1003_1676061862.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jessica Taylor Bellamy titled "A Slight Exaggeration." This artwork was created in 2023 and measures 38" x 51" [HxW] (96.52 x 129.54 cm). Its medium is Oil on canvas.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jessica-Taylor-Bellamy_JTB1006_1676061859.jpg)
