Jessica Rankin on ‘the nostalgia for the infinite’ (2021)

Video (7:25): Jessica Rankin discusses her exhibition the nostalgia for the infinite at White Cube Bermondsey, London, UK in 2021. The artist reflects on the new direction her paintings have taken, her use of poetry, and how she found inspiration in John Cage’s idea to ‘be unfamiliar to yourself’.

Jessica Rankin

Jessica Rankin was born in 1971 in Sydney, Australia and lives and works in New York. Selected solo and duo exhibitions include Touchstones Rochdale, UK (2017); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (2016) with Julie Mehretu; Salon 94, New York (2014); Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta (2013); The Project, New York (2009); MoMA PS1, New York (2006); and Franklin Artworks, Minneapolis (2005). Group exhibitions include The Uptown Triennial, New York (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2015); Fie Myles, New York (2011); Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco (2011); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2006); The Project, Los Angeles (2005); and Artist’s Space, New York (2003). – White Cube

Artists Julie Mehretu and Jessica Rankin ‘were together for eight years and married for an additional six, bonding over their artistic practice and intertwining their lives to the extent of having children. However, when their romantic relationship ended in 2014, they redefined their partnership so they could still be family, friends, and artists together. When explaining how they were able to do so, they credited being queer – they had invented a relationship that worked for them before, one that looked different than the norm at the time, and they could do it again.’ (MutualArt, 2023)

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