Jessica J. Watson
Jessica J. Watson (1975), the artist behind Candy Face Art, grew up under the power lines in the tiny Burlington Beach community on the shores of Lake Ontario. Curiosity has always been a strong motivator for her both internally through imagination and externally through travel and exploration. For her first half of life careers, Jessica was involved in machining, welding and aerospace operations. She took a year of flight training at Confederation College in Thunder Bay Ontario and completed Welder training certification at Mohawk College as well as some Interior Design courses and a Business certification at Sheridan College. All of these experiences circle around curiosity, problem-solving in innovative ways, and imagination; to learn what things do, how they work or what something could be. To be clear, she has had this artistic curiosity from a very young age and has always maintained artistic practices throughout her life so far. Jessica has also traveled quite a bit and spent a year living in the Dutch Caribbean exploring culture, language, food and art. A recent graduate with honours of Sheridan College’s Visual and Creative Arts Program in 2020, Jessica recounts how wonderful the opportunity to return to school and study art was, it’s like a coming home to her creative origins to be able to focus so heavily on the imaginative side of curiosity and how these paintings are akin to creating a dialog in an entire new language. Jessica currently works primarily in acrylic on canvas with a focus on large scale abstract psychedelic portraiture, the gaze of multi-expression vibrant colourful faces, emphasizing composition, hard-edge colour, shape and space.