New Website and Prints from Jessica Serran

While we were in the midst of the craziness right before our wedding, CCS alumni Jessica Serran completely redesigned her website. When we interviewed her a while back, we talked mostly about her paintings. But Jessica works with a lot of mediums, including performance art and other “live” projects that involve interaction with her community. Her new site really brings those unique projects into the forefront.

An installation at West Oakland Train Station using cake, chalk, flour and balloons

Part of You Could Go Anywhere, an interactive installation modeled after the Choose Your Own Adventure books

In her new shop section of the site, Jessica has some prints available of her intricate black and white drawings.

She also has a project called Need Help? Jessica will draw you a response to a pressing issue you have in your life. The drawing is meant to provide a different perspective on the problem so that you can think about it differently.

Before you visit Jessica’s website, take a look at the wonderfully introspective interview she gave us.

Interview with Jessica Serran

Dennis and I go to Avalon Bakery almost every Saturday.  One Saturday, I happened to glance inside one of the other buildings on the way there and was struck by these huge paintings.  I was standing outside of The Spiral Collective, which unbeknownst to me was home to the Dell Pryor Gallery.  Once inside I stood beneath very large canvases made of file folders.  Looking way upward, I felt like a child trying to grasp something I couldn’t completely understand.

"Flesh and Blood"

Jessica Serran’s art is like a visual display of one person’s stream-of-consciousness.  Each painting has human-like figures, their posture expressing a feeling, and sometimes with thoughts scrawled near them.  She was kind enough to grant us an interview and I’m really blown away by how intently she thinks about art.  I highly recommend visiting her website to view her paintings in more detail and to see videos of her performance art.  Better yet, go to Avalon, get a sea salt chocolate chip cookie and the best espresso you’ll ever taste and then pop in the Spiral Collective to see it in person.

Detail of "Can't I Just Surrender?"

The entire interview and more images are after the jump.

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Andrew Sliwinski’s Type Studies

When I was taking classes at the College for Creative Studies, I often walked by their on-campus gallery called U245. Unfortunately I never got to check it out because it usually wasn’t open (I was taking night and weekend classes). I’m going to try and make it a point to visit if I re-enroll this summer.

From the pictures I’ve seen, it’s a really informal gallery space with artwork often tacked up unframed.  This kind of atmosphere makes it perfect for displaying large amounts of sketches and studies.  ”Typocalypse” was a collection of hand drawn type studies that was at U245 back in 2005.  I just came across some of these old studies in the portfolio of Andrew Sliwinski.  They’re pretty and they make me happy.

Andrew is a designer and information architect who has built up a really impressive client list in the time since he’s drawn these type specimens.  He has lots of great stuff in his portfolio, including a bunch of concert posters I had to stop myself from posting as well.  Visit thisandagain.com.