Jessica Zoob

Interview with artist Jessica Zoob —

1. Who are you and what do you do?
I am Jessica Zoob, I am a painter and I have studios in Sussex and HongKong, and I am an environmentalist and I am very interested in the power of art as a healing tool.

“For Joy”

2. Why art?
My first career was as a theatre designer however when I became a mother that career became more difficult to peruse, after that I rediscovered my love of painting and I have since found this career path entirely fulfilling.

“Perfect Day”

3. What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist?
My earliest memory of wanting to be creative was imagining dance choreography whilst listening to classical music at a very young age, I used to make up all kinds of ballets in my mind.

“Shadow Play”

4. What are your favorite subject(s) and media(s)?
I find the natural world to be my main source of inspiration, although I also love the texture and history of evocative human-made marks, it could be scars across the landscape, it could be fairy kisses in the sky, it could be graffiti on an old crumbling wall.

“Passion”

5. How do you work and approach your subject?
I work intuitively in a process of building up and scraping back paint, to create surfaces which hold many images within them as the eye focuses and refocuses.

“Where Magic Happens”

6. What are your favorite art work(s), artist(s)?
I love Ben Nicholson, Paul Klee, Kurt Shwitters. Artists who create a sense of fragility and a subtle use of colour.

“Dragonfly Dancing”

“Sweet Memory”
triptych

7. What are the best responses you have had to your work?

‘Even when there are storms in evidence, metaphors for the turbulence of life, there is optimism too – light on the edge of a cloud or a shaft of sunshine breaking through the darkness. Subliminally, her paintings are all about moving to a state of lightness or place of hope. Her work has the uncanny ability to hold up a mirror to our own emotional state – an insightful and spiritual moment of contemplation that forms a connection between viewer and painting. ‘ Helen Chislett

For me it was so exciting that art dealer Bernard Jacobson described my work as “Truly beautiful.”

“Midnight Garden”

8. What do you like about your work?
I like that it has the power to make people smile and sometimes cry! It has captured people’s imaginations without boundaries of age or country. I like that when I look at it has a life of its own, and I feel that the painting leads me and makes its own demands about its final form.

“Celabration”

9. What advice would you give to other artists?
Be true to what you want to create, always listen to your own inner voice. I think this is more important than being swayed by other people’s opinions.

“Feeling Good”

10. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
I see myself in my new studio, which is currently in planning, around which i am currently creating and cultivating ecological habitats – wildflower meadows, woodlands, wetlands. I see myself finding and exploring the synchronicity between creating the garden and creating the work.

Jessica Zoob

LINKS —

Website: www.jessicazoob.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessicazoobartist