Jessy Jetpacks (b. 1987 Dubai, UAE) previously studied art at Winchester School of Art.
A maximalist in referencing and emotional registers, Jetpacks works across many mediums, most recently focusing on video, digital works, virtual reality, music, and 3D printing. Her work is poignant, provocative and engaging, with a dark sense of humour and a sometime belligerent vulnerability. Themes and interests range from the global political to the fundamental and private human condition – advocacy, poetry, and philosophy all finding their place.
Subverting polemical binaries, Jetpacks explores these themes with sensitivity, finding humour and intrigue within the ouroboros-like metastructures, never wholly consistent or complete, which underpin any narrative of reality. Consistently challenging and forward-thinking, Jetpack’s parodies of popular/internet culture and the modern relationships forged within it are always accessible and always evocative.
In 2017 Jetpacks collaborated with HTC Vive on Virtually Real, creating works of art in virtual reality that, in a world-first, were then brought to life through 3D printing.
Born: 1987
RA Schools student from 2014 to 2017
Gender: Female
2018 Chumming, Pipe Factory, Glasgow
Lady Beard presents: technical issues, Guest Projects Gallery, London
Fractal Paisleys, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh
The Second Space, Maike Centre, Xi’an, China
2017 Bare Cheek, Arebyte Gallery, London
Oral Rinse, Hive, London
Bearing Liability, Strange Cargo, Folkestone
RA Ipad pro + art, Apple HQ, London
summer graduate show, Anise Gallery. London
RA schools show, Royal Academy of Arts School, London
Gender identity and material, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Virtually Real, Royal Academy of Arts
Elliot Dodd and Jessy Jetpacks, Evelyn Yard London
Royal Academy America, New York City
2016 All About My Mother, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Premiums, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Our Values, Mexico
2015, Open studios, London
Burlington Gardens Festival, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2014 Open studios, London
2012 For the time being, Oxo Tower, London
2017 - 2018 Bow Arts Almacantar studio award
2017 HTC Vive commission
Patricia Turner sculpture award
2016 Tokyo Geidai residency
Machin prize
Pauline Sitwell bursary
2012 Great Britons, second place