Jessica Niello-White is a painter deeply rooted in the traditions and lineage of her craft. “I am a painter. I’ve been making paintings for a long time,” she writes, positioning each of her works as “a single star in a broad shimmering constellation of art that exists on the planet.” This cosmic metaphor reflects her fascination with artistic heritage—from the Renaissance artists who first stretched canvas after witnessing decaying frescoes on Venetian walls, to atmospheric glow of Michaël Borremans works, to the still and uncanny spaces of Gertrude Abercrombie. She sees each of her works as a point of connection within that tradition, attentive to how light, mood, and lineage converge on the canvas. Niello-White acknowledges her debt to artists who came before her, while remaining committed to painting as a living, evolving practice. Her process is intuitive and grounded in observation, guided less by analysis than by a desire to respond directly to what she feels and sees.
Niello-White’s paintings also reflect a fascination with the absurd, the humorous, and the mysterious. She is drawn to moments of surprise, delight, and even taboo, and she brings this sensibility into both her studio and her daily life. She embraces uncertainty, likening her role to the archetype of the Fool in tarot, a figure who accepts the not-knowing as essential to discovery. Influenced by the writings of poet David Whyte, she recognizes life’s cycles of clarity and mystery, and she meets them through painting. For her, the act of painting is not only a way of making images but also a lifelong practice of returning, again and again, to the unknown.