Artist & Creator of Special Issue s Magazine
Jessie Cunningham-Reid
https://www.instagram.com/jessiecunninghamreid/
https://jessiecunninghamreid.cargo.site
Rather than critiquing “selfie culture” from the sideline, I have leaned into it.
I have taken myself on a Covid adventure, digital collage series (2020)
In my own
work I use “selfie” culture to comment on narcissism and the irony of taking
what can be seen as a vanity project through a lens of self-criticism.
Navel gazing, selfie-taking and self-therapy become blurred in an attempt to
understand oneself, change and the world around us.
“@specialissues is an extension of Jessie’s work in digital collage and takes on a satirical approach to abstract traditional fashion magazine graphic design and photography.
The online magazine spotlights local Naarm/Melbourne artists who work with punk-style methodologies, challenging the patriarchal complex through word and image.
The respective artists represent varied multidisciplinary mediums, disrupting parallel plains of aesthetic and conceptual presentation in an ever digitising age.” words by Chelsea Hickman @fashionchelsea
My recent work of digital collages emerged in response to my lack of studio and day-job in mental health. Interested in selfie-culture from a self-reflective and philosophical perspective, I have become curious about the importance of accurate self-image and what importance this really has. I have started to use my self as a mechanism for questioning what society values in terms of superficial beauty and how authenticity can be questioned, but also how much does authenticity really matter?
By inserting myself into my own photography work and drawings, I have juxtaposed two elements of my pratice, that being sincere pieces of which value the integrity of an art pratice and subverting a phenomena of selfie-culture that exist on the same social media platforms. These crude collages become self-portraits that have transpired through a variety of mediums culminating to become various represenations of the ubiquitous “self.”
