Jessica Voorsanger
Artist-in-residence on the starship enterprise
24 October - 6 December 2019
Opening Party: Thursday 24 October 6 - 8pm
The most recent painting installation, posed the question “What would I make if I was the Artist-in- Residence on the Starship Enterprise?”
- Jessica Voorsanger
School Gallery is pleased to present Artist-In-Residence on the Starship Enterprise, an exhibition of new work by Jessica Voorsanger. For this exhibition Voorsanger has created an immersive painting installation, expounding her own obsession with the science fiction television series Star Trek. Voorsanger finds her inspiration in popular culture with a particular facsination on celebrity. Historically this began with a subjective focus on fan adulation but the work has come to explore these themes in relation to identity, gender and humour using colour, pattern, performance and interactivity as vehicles within a multi-disciplinarian practice.
Voorsanger’s multifaceted practice uses a wide range of media and addresses difficult subjects, like her relatively recent experiences of cancer. She orchestrates marches, protests, performances, and is lead singer with The Apathy Band, that features Bob & Roberta Smith, George Lionel Barker, Owen Thomas, George Cleghorn, Leonardo Ulian, Rebecca Glover and Colin Humphries. Her prominent position as a frontwoman has meant she has a performative practice with playful use of dress up and costume. Voorsanger recently hosted a series of film events at Tate Modern where she dressed as Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso and Peggy Guggenheim. Historic works have invited the audience to dress up as various characters, with costumes displayed alongside portraits. Portraiture plays an important role in this exhibition with 50 portraits of prominent characters from the iconic television series.
Star Trek has been a subject of facsination for Voorsanger for some time and has filtered into her work in many ways, making her ask: “What would I make if I was the Artist-in-Residence on the Starship Enterprise?”. Voorsanger said “What’s my relationship to Star Trek? Why would I apply to be the Artist-in-Residence on the Starship Enterprise? Well, when an opportunity arises it’s always best to try, right? I didn’t end up with a ‘red shirt’* so it all turned out fine in the end. Star Trek
is everything. It’s a place where education and diversity are valued, there are wonderful fabrics, uniforms and magical science, and some very strong female role models. It’s not an ideal galaxy but I know that Captain Picard and Captain Janeway were most certainly patrons of the arts”.
She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (1987) and her MA in Fine Art from University of London, Goldsmiths College (1993). She has shown extensively including: Mystery Train, Art on the Underground & ICA, London, Eastenders, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, The Woody Allen Show, Gallery-33 FON, Berlin, I Think I Love You, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, The Retrieval Series: Bob Geldof, Modern Culture, New York, Baby Shower, Camden Art Centre, London, Star Struck, New Art Gallery Walsall, England, Hearing Voices, Seeing Things, Serpentine Gallery, London, Forward/Backward Reloading, Island 6 Art Center, Shanghai China, Air Guitar, touring show including Milton Keynes Gallery & Cornerhouse, Manchester, To Whom it May Concern, CCAC, San Francisco CA. Her monograph published by Black Dog Publishing The Art of Jessica Voorsanger came out in 2014 as is available from the gallery.
* ‘Red shirt’ is reference to characters in the television series who were expendable and often killed on away missions