Jessica Wimbley, the second artist in the KaleidoLA series, is known for her work in collage, photography and video. Her artwork is currently featured in a virtual solo exhibition Jessica Wimbley: Belle Jet and Cabinet Cards hosted online by the Laband Art Gallery.* 

Merging memory, biology, culture, and history, Wimbley investigates how identity is constructed through portraiture as well as inherited ideals and beliefs. By layering and excising materials, Wimbley remixes visual and cultural histories to reveal structures and expand understanding of Black identity as multiple, integrated, and intersectional. She fuses literary and popular-culture references, drawn from sources such as Jet Magazine, with historic photographs, family pictures, microscopic images of melanin, printed media, drawing, and painting—resulting in compelling small- and large-scale works that explore the complexities of race and narrative in the American imagination.

About the Artist

Wimbley earned an MA in Arts Management from Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management in 2013. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts, from UC Davis, 2005, and a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, 2003.

She completed artist-in-residencies at College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, CA, in 2020; University of La Verne, CA, in 2016; and Ripon College, WI, in 2013. Upcoming exhibitions in 2021 include a solo show “Biomythography: Mutter Sprache” at Brand Library and Art Center, Glendale, CA, and participation in the group show “Oregon Hair Stories,” curated by Nancy Buchanan for the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR. She has participated in dozens of group shows across the country and has received critical reviews in Hyperallergic, Art and Cake, LA Weekly, Huffington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. In addition to her career as a visual artist, she is an accomplished museum professional with specializations in art education and curation.

* The exhibition Jessica Wimbley: Belle Jet and Cabinet Cards was on view at the College of the Canyons Art Gallery from February 3 to March 26, 2020, and was curated by Pamela Bailey Lewis, Gallery Director.

Artist’s Website

About KaleidoLA

KaleidoLA is the Department of Art and Art History’s annual guest speaker series and is a featured program of the College of Communication and Fine Arts (CFA). For the past eight years, KaleidoLA has been a vital connection between Loyola Marymount University and the Los Angeles arts community. For fall 2020, in collaboration with LMU’s Laband Art Gallery, KaleidoLA will thematically center artists whose artwork and lived experiences foreground issues of racial, economic and social justice. In light of COVID-19 restrictions, all lectures will be delivered live on Zoom.

For more information about this event, contact Karen Rapp, Director & Curator, Laband Art Gallery, karen.rapp@lmu.edu

Image courtesy of Glen Wilson and Jessica Wimbley