ARTIST STATEMENT

life is art and art is life

I'm obsessed with being alive. Yet mostly,
I live in a state of forgetfulness
and interruption; questioning how I could be living life differently,
in a more complex way and (worst of all) ''better and more efficiently''.
Questioning how much I can control the course of my life,
and how much others are influencing my life.
Looking for timeless truths and contemporary dogmas.
Thus, my art is a documentation of my
development as a human being.
Very ''po-mo'' right? Being both the researcher as well as the subject...

Ever in a sickeningly romantic attempt, to reach the impossible goal, of being enlightened.
And then, after yet another
ugly breakdown or surprise,
I finally escape the paradox through art.
- Only briefly -
And then, slightly transformed, start all over again...

BIOGRAPHY

Before commencing her study of fine-arts at the Willem de Kooning academy in Rotterdam, Jessica van Deursen has taken numerous acting classes and courses. This is where her interest and love for performance art came about. During het Ba of fine-arts, she started developing her first multimedia performances, in which she combines music, concept, decor, video, visuals with narrative. Often, her work has a dreamlike quality to it, often referring to all kinds of folklore and historical elements. 
Nowadays, her work can be found most often in the public space. Van Deursen wants her work to be accessible to all sorts of people, and wants her work to invoke experiences that transcend our human rational manner of understanding. Because she believes that in a state of doubt, discomfort, absurdity and just following our intuition, we can discover most about ourselves and leave all our unnecessary ideas and assumptions behind.
Sometimes her work is like a personal diary, sometimes she stretches her own limits with her performances, and sometimes she holds up a mirror for her participants and public. Covering topics like personal growth, but also questioning our role as political actors within society.