My work explores magical realism, seeking the extraordinary amongst the everyday, the act of reaching out for something elusive, even if at that very moment it has already changed or vanished. 

Memory and landscape thread throughout my work, investigating the liminal space between land and sea, wild places, the past and present, night and day. The act of revisiting a place and exploring its undefined boundaries creates a narrative about what we see, what we remember, what has changed and what is no longer there.

As a printmaker the core of my work is an engagement with process where the mood and narrative of an image evolve through multiple phases and mediums; this multi layered practice adds a play on luminosity, enhances darkness or light to create atmospheric etchings that shimmer and evoke a portal between the past and present.

The most interesting things are always in the shadows, in the invisible

The starting point begins with a remote and wild place, a path leading down to the shore and its gothic past. A salt water pull develops a dialogue of cyclical investigation, and is ongoing; Nature, weather and landscapes change or vanish, boundaries blend and blur, and it is what we don’t see at the edges, in the spaces, between night and day that is pivotal to my work.

Combining intaglio print and pinhole photography, landscape and the suggestive nature of childhood memories are examined in work that echoes of a sense of nostalgia, transformation and tangibility.

Evocative of the past, the choice to use pinhole photography as a starting point is deliberate. The living quality of images act as a lens to glimpse things barely visible to the eye, pools of deep space and light, suggestive of layers of mist and what is just out of reach

Through this process, the unexpected is often illuminated and the ordinary becomes transformed: fleeting moments are captured, details lost and added, mistakes embraced, building an alternative narrative of a landscape that is suggestive, more profound and more supernatural.

There was a Time

Memories constantly thread throughout my work, blurring what we see and what is no longer there. This set of prints celebrates the talisman-like value of silvered and denaturating photographic images and the traces that remerge connecting us with the past.

From old family photos, I consider what was important to the photographer and the stories that led up to the moment the image was captured.  These photographs, like the landscape, hold memories that link us with the past, anchoring us to the history of a place.

I Remember Nightfall

Inspired by Marosa Di Giorgio’s “I Remember Nightfall”, my current set of etchings are an exploration of poetry, memory and my relationship with a familiar landscape, particularly when light fades and boundaries become less distinct and surreal. This is a new project for 2026 and the work will explore a space between recollection and dreams.

Jess studied at Goldsmiths College of Art, London and has been a member of Spike Print Studio in Bristol since 2006.