Allowing the narrative to be found in the act of making.

Women and beasts are explored in Jessie Makinson’s playful and anthropomorphic creations. She invites me into her London studio to talk about Britain’s first girl gang, ‘Alice Diamond And The 40 Elephants’, speculative fiction, and the problems of today’s agriculture systems. In the fifth floor of the Old Town Hall in Catford, South East London, I come to find Jessie Makinson’s studio, supported by Bow Arts, housing a broad range of start-ups and emerging artists working with a variety of mediums. Makinson’s work is definitely diverse in materials — these including ceramics, wallpaper, fabric, glass, or wax. Paintings lie around, and her drawings are filed in antique cabinets. Makinson is a London-based artist who predominantly works on multi-layered compositions that depict woman and animalistic presences in fictional yet recognisable places. At the studio, her painting process is very intuitive. It commences by making pattern-like under-paintings of fluid abstract forms, which she then transforms into figures in unearthly atmospheres, adding a narrative through layering. Automatically, she lets the process lead her, creating a flow of energy that forethought can’t enable. The works have a balance between intuition and control, informed by historical references, celebrity pop culture, fashion, interior design, amongst others. These varied narratives can be traced back to the 30’s, and simultaneously foresee a time yet to come. With this, Makinson offers the viewer a sense of a time or place that we have never been to.