American artist Jessica T Bellamy uses iconic motifs to flip common held narratives surrounding the source and meaning of the imagery. Her work centers around the familiarity of Southern California and its landscapes in our collective global knowledge.
Bellamy's choice of pastel colours hint at the alluring promise of what California holds for new residents and visitors alike. Her highway paintings are particularly notable, in which Bellamy replaces road sign text with thoughtful messages. These pieces of text comment on continuing social and political issues, pushing the informative nature of these road signs further than their functional purpose. With these messages, she subverts the common held conceptions of what California paints itself to be and creates a new definition. Her fresh perspective and incredible care for detail in each work prove her enthusiasm in depicting her home.
Bellamy's work not only has a striking use of composition and colour, it also gives us a new frame of reference for iconic imagery that is broadly associated with Southern California's fame and allure.
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