Jessie Homer French

Over five decades, Jessie Homer French has produced a catalog of what she describes as “regional narrative paintings” that portray the landscapes of rural California and elsewhere. With tiny, meticulous brushstrokes, the artist builds worlds populated by small human figures as well as domesticated and wild animals. Drawing from self-taught and folk traditions of painting, she makes flat, stylized compositions that render her natural subjects in great detail. She often works from multiple reference photographs to capture the forms of native trees and species.

French frequently devises compositions divided between upper and lower levels that reveal the entities hidden under land and sea. Cemeteries are a frequent subject. Her paintings also exemplify the artist’s regular return to sites of environmental breaches and man-made disasters, in works that incorporate hazard signs and billowing plumes of fire and ash.

 

 

 

 

Jessie Homer French
Unmarked Grave, 2024
titled and signed on verso
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 in
61 x 76.2 cm
(JHF478)

 

 

Jessie Homer French
Mahjong, 2023
Oil on canvas
16 x 24 in
40.6 x 61 cm
(JHF451)

 

Jessie Homer French
The Wall, 2021
Oil on canvas
16 x 24 in
40.6 x 61 cm
(JHF386)

 

 

Jessie Homer French
Inferno, 2014
Oil on canvas
12 x 22 ins
30.48 x 55.88 cm
(JHF066)