JESSICA BRILLI

American artist, Jessica Brilli, gained her BFA in painting at the University of Rhode Island and received a certificate in graphic design from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. After almost 20 years working at Harvard University as a graphic designer, in 2021, Brilli decided to become an artist full-time and has since garnered significant recognition for her work.

Her style is reminiscent of 20th century American Realism and graphic design, depicting modernist lines and American iconography from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Revealing beauty in the everyday, her subjects tend to be buildings, objects, cars, pools and sometimes people, nondescript characters who populate the scenes like part of the landscape. Brilli’s work is about suburban life, echoing her childhood in the North East of the US, in Long Island. Ambiguous in location, the paintings allow the viewer to insert themselves in the narrative, permuting these memories to their own. Having resonated with Edward Hopper’s work from a young age, her work is heavily influenced by his solitary urban landscapes, permeating both artists’ work with a feeling of introspective romance.

Brilli’s practice is based on photographic slides the artist finds in antique shops, yard sales and thrift stores, skimming through thousands until one speaks to her own story. Her color palette mimics the natural degradation of film, masking the original colours in yellow and brown overtones. The artist aims to explore the effects of colour on our collective memory.