Printmaker and Painter Jess McKiernan’s work aims to capture the delicate influence light plays on colour. Celebrating bold and bright moments transporting the audience to nostalgic scenes, shaped by sentimental stories and memories. Stemming from a childhood connection to the coastal regions of the Southwest, Jess creates multi-layered original screen-prints and paintings. Colour is the main focus of each piece; every layer is meticulously planned out and considered to develop a mood or a moment in time reflecting our relationship with place.

After completing her BA in Fine Arts with a major in Printmaking at Curtin University, Jess moved to the UK to settle in the coastal county of Cornwall. Inspired by the rugged Cornish coast and thriving creative arts scene, Jess began to create and exhibit her screen-prints and paintings amongst local galleries. Here she also worked in a printmaking studio for several years running workshops and community-based arts events, which lead to a desire to teach. Completing a Post Graduate Degree in Art & Design Education in 2018, Jess has taught Art in the private and public sector. Moving back to the southwest of WA in 2020 Jess now lectures at South Regional TAFE and teaches workshops through her business, LOen.

Her new body of work focuses on the unavoidable shifts in the natural and urban landscape, and how this permeates to a sense of place. This colourful art series of limited edition screen-prints, and original paintings celebrates the old beach shacks and captures the heat on a sunny afternoon growing up in Dunsborough. Inspired by the disappearing fibro houses, native flora and fauna of the southwest and nostalgic summer holiday scenes. Jess’s work captures everything you would imagine seeing on a trip to Dunsborough and instils a sense of homesickness or longing for a place that once was.