Jes­si­ca Rankin
Field of Mars

Jes­si­ca Rank­in’s inau­gur­al exhi­bi­tion at Anna Schwartz Gallery ​‘Field of Mars’ was inspired by the artist’s last trip to Aus­tralia in 2014, when Rankin came to find her mother’s bur­ial site, in the apt­ly named ​‘Field of Mars’ ceme­tery out­side Syd­ney. Rank­in’s moth­er was the promi­nent poet and play­wright Jen­nifer Rankin who passed away in 1979. Her poet­ic influ­ence is expressed in Rank­in’s prac­tice through tex­tu­al arrange­ments and word col­lages that she com­pos­es and recom­pos­es using method­olo­gies of chance.

Jes­si­ca Rank­in’s visu­al lan­guage explores the ways mean­ing may be ascribed onto land­scape. The artist inves­ti­gates per­son­al con­nec­tions to the envi­ron­ment by cap­tur­ing the com­po­si­tion of the sky on dates of par­tic­u­lar per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance. The result­ing com­po­si­tions reflect those moments with what she refers to as mind­scapes. The water­colours and draw­ings in the exhi­bi­tion are both uni­ver­sal as well as being pock­ets of mem­o­ries in a per­son­al nar­ra­tive. The embroi­deries sug­gest abstract land­scapes, which stem from rec­ol­lec­tions, exter­nal obser­va­tions and inter­nal expe­ri­ences. Using nee­dle and thread, each lyri­cal com­po­si­tion is embed­ded with lay­ers, codes and con­stel­la­tions that com­prise psy­cho-geo­graph­ic maps.

Rank­in’s inter­est in the way mean­ing is asso­ci­at­ed with nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na has led her to explore astro­nom­i­cal stud­ies of the stars as well as poet­ic astro­log­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions. She is also drawn to trans-cul­tur­al rela­tion­ships to land and instils in her work a wide spec­trum of meaning.