Jessie Homer French: Fire, Fish and Death

The first comprehensive publication on artist Jessie Homer French's work.

Born in 1940 in New York, New York, Jessie Homer French lives and works in Mountain Center, California. Homer French is a self-taught, self-proclaimed "regional narrative painter" who routinely, perhaps even obsessively, paints archetypes of death, nature, and rural life. Through a simplified language of apparently naive, flat colours and calm brushstrokes, her paintings emerge as a continuous analysis of her surroundings, in which creation and destruction coexist with exemplary candour.

The paintings reproduced in Fire, Fish, and Death are a lyrical exploration of the fragility and beauty of existence, conveyed through soft brushstrokes and a vibrant palette. Often depicting death and destruction—which usually comes in the aftermath of fires—the artist consistently challenges the viewer through the use of striking imagery, such as large numbers of deceased fish in pristine water or funerals with heavily adorned coffins that draw attention away from the bereaved.

Despite the artist's realistic representation of these scenes, they possess an otherworldly and surreal quality that transports the viewer outside of their present reality and creates a sense of disorientation and awe. Jessie Homer French, blessed with a poetic eye and a deft hand, reminds us of the transience of life, capturing the fleeting moments of existence in a way that is both haunting and idyllic.