JESSICA MURRIETA

posted April 16 2009 by Patrick Milo

Inspired by disparate elements such as slasher films, ninjas, fashion and femininity, Jessica Murrieta’s work fuses beauty with the grotesque, glamorous with the deadly, living with the inescapable notion of mortality. Her graceful, feminine forms embody an ever-present struggle inspired by the horror films capturing her fascination at a young age. Murrieta’s work questions this cinematic genre’s bifurcated portrayal of female characters frequently subject to playing either the role of vixen or virgin, good or bad. Throughout her work, Jessica Murrieta pushes against these binaries creating alluring female figures simultaneously innocent, sensual, and deadly- as complex as the world in which they exist.

Stemming from a rich educational background in fashion design acquired at the Art Institute of California, San Francisco, Murrieta’s images comprising A Dangerous Allure depict women as chic, graceful and statuesque all the while harboring a dark, devious nature. The artist’s choice medium is almost exclusively watercolor and pen and ink, yet she incorporates a variety of accents such as decadent gold leaf and richly saturated gouache into her works on paper.