Artist Bio:
Jessica Wetherhill is a sophomore at the University of Central Florida, majoring in Visual Arts Management and minoring in Digital Humanities. She was born in Leeds, England, but immigrated to the United States at age two. She spent most of her life in Fernandina Beach, Florida, a small beach town on the coast of northern Florida. She has always been passionate about art and thrived in advanced art classes throughout high school. Jessica has been featured in Luna Fine Art Gallery’s Amelia Island Student Exhibition of 2024 and has multiple sold works. She won many awards from 2020-2024 through the Northeast Florida Scholastic Art Awards competition, achieving gold, silver, and honorable mentions. Jessica is an active member of UCF's Kappa Pi International Art Honors Society and aims to be more involved in Orlando's artistic scene. Jessica works with various media, but her favorites include colored pencils, oil pastels, and acrylic paint. Jessica is recognized by the vibrancy and saturation of her works, which make her work impactful and eye-catching to viewers. She aims to emotionally impact the audience and question societal norms through her artwork, as well as focus on the specific feeling of nostalgia and the passing of time.
Artist Statement:
My work focuses on exploring nostalgia in a way that helps me understand my own personal growth. I revisit memories when creating my pieces, and how these events shaped my identity and perspective of the world. Through my artwork, I aim to evoke the feeling of nostalgia as more than just past events, but as something that has impacted me permanently. I use vibrant colors to persuade a feeling of emotional intensity and reminiscence. My saturated colors intend to display how core memories linger in our minds as bright and vivid, even as time passes. I use alternating perspectives and compositions in my artwork to display scale and visual hierarchy, which mimics the shifting of memories over time. Experimenting with perspective allows me to create emotional depth in my artwork and display my personal experience with nostalgia. I use overlapping elements to show how memories can be blurred together and misinterpreted, which is what we often experience with nostalgia. I use high color contrast in order to create an emotional and memorable piece and show the different emotions we have experienced. By using these artistic elements, I achieve my goal of creating an impactful and moving work of art.
