Jessica Joy Hiemstra

I've collaborated regularly with Genzah Handmade Watercolours. This painting is from one of those collaborations.

This is s still from one of my animations. I do pencil and ink drawings and photograph them on a light table. I then string them together to create films. This comes from a film of cliff swallows nesting under a bridge in Etobicoke (the Humber bridge).

This is a still from an animation of red-winged blackbirds in the reeds. Each image in the animation is hand-painted on rice paper with ink and pencil.

This is me high up on a ladder working on a mural for mibody fitness in Etobicoke (Ontario). I love painting murals - and doing this brought me so much joy!

White pine - this painting is oil on canvas.

This painting is hanging at the Guelph Wellington Women in Crisis Centre to give women courage when they step into, and out of, the doors of the centre.

Artist Statement

In the words of Azar Nafisi, I believe art is as useful as bread. We need it because it gives us the courage to live. I started drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil. Drawing began as a way to take what was inside me and let it out so I could really see it and turn it over. It was, and still is, a way to feel onto the page - love, grief, rage. I think of drawing as language: that artists like me create their own syntax. What's special about this is that people who don't speak my language can understand it. My hope is that what I create makes room for the hearts of the people who encounter it. I think that art can shift us, and make us see each other better. I love creating public art - my murals are a way of giving and connecting with people and bringing joy to shared spaces. I also love animating - which I am learning how to do, by doing it. Animation, for me, is a way of slowing down a moment, and being in time. I like listening. I think making art is the way I listen best - to the people I collaborate with, to our world in crisis, and to my own heart.

Biography

I am a visual artist, poet and designer living in Gunning Cove, Shelburne County, Mi'kma'ki. My fourth book, Blood Root (poems), is forthcoming with Icehouse (Goose Lane Editions) in Fredericton in 2025 and includes my drawings. I paint murals, write picture books, make paintings for kidsbooks, and sometimes paint my nails. I also create animations with pencils, pens, and a light table. I'm inspired by Ingrid Brooker, Tracie Peisley, Claire Wilks, Graeme Patterson, Cole Swanson, brave children, and kind adults. I like collaboration - from set design to book design to illustration. I like collaboration because I get to learn from other people, and because it gives me hope.