Joya: AiR / Jessica Bonnie Winters / CAN

‘While getting over some serious jet-lag, I became increasingly concerned about how I would find inspiration for my work, which is based solely on a landscape and culture that could not be anymore different than my interpretation of rural Spain. I came to understand that despite these differences, my interest and love for the land still remained, and that’s what I focused on. From my daily walks I began collecting photos of lichen, comparing and painting the different species from both Joya and my home in Canada. These paintings and ideas have completely hijacked the trajectory of my work for the foreseeable future.

Thank you to the artists I spent time with for welcoming me, encouraging me and sharing your stories with me, and thank you Joya: AiR for giving me the time and space to connect with the land´.

Jessica Bonnie Winters

Jessica is an Inuk from northern Labrador and works with paint and seal skin. (Inuk are the indigenous people of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic occupying Labrador, Quebec, Greenland, Nunavut, North West Territories and Alaska)

Awards
2021 - Arts and Minds Canada Invitational Artist in Residency Award, Tilting, NL
2021 - UNAAN Artist Program Grant, St. John's NL

Exhibitions:
2020 - Of Myths and Mountains, The Rooms
2019 - Nunatsiavut: Our Beautiful Land, La Guilde

No formal arts training - I am a self-taught/traditional inuit artist.