Artist Bio

Jessica Watson-Thorp is a formally trained Fine Artist with over 20 years’ experience in creating bespoke pieces for her dedicated global collector base. 

Through her work Watson-Thorp examines our collective human experience, exploring themes of feelings of belonging, humanity, the ‘other’, tolerance and acceptance, external and internal landscape, homecoming and centrality.

Watson-Thorp trained at universities in both Adelaide, Sydney and New Zealand, and has lived over half her life amongst a range of diverse cultural groups around the globe. Alongside Melbourne, she has many ‘homes’, from the desert sands of the Middle East, to the cool tones of London, and the raw energy of Southern Africa. 

“Art is entwined in every facet of my life. I knew I was creative from the moment I could walk – my grandmother taught me to paint and whisked me away on art-inspired holidays. I was formally trained in Australia in all aspects of fine art including sculpture, painting, drawing, print making and additionally curatorship. 

I am a country girl at heart and grew up amongst the farms in rural South Australia. My existence was very sheltered until age 17 when I first went abroad to study. From there, life has been a continual adventure.

My very recent return to Australia in 2019 has brought up feelings around displacement and belonging. Becoming centred in a familiar yet foreign landscape is no easy feat. In a way, I feel like an alien in my own country. It’s an oddly familiar setting, where everything seems skewed.

I continuously come back to centre in amongst my internal landscape before setting myself in amongst the external landscape of this new cultural plane. I am viewing the world from an international and intercultural perspective, my works having references to my life abroad and assimilation into foreign cultures. You may see symbols and code found across the Middle East, and other ‘foreign’ reference points whilst bringing in the’new’ bright bold light and colours of Australia. 

I love the way ink and paint behave. They're very different, yet complimentary applications. Mixing the mediums of painting and printmaking has become a joy, a continual exploration, one of which I will never tire. 

I invite the viewer to spend time in stillness. Prompting and promoting calmer moments as they get to know themselves, and therefore all of humanity.”

Watson-Thorp has recently shown at EAGLES NEST FINE ART GALLERY on the Great Ocean Road, SIKKA Dubai, MESTARIA GALLERY Dubai, and NOVUS GALLERY Abu Dhabi. She has hung alongside Zhuang Hong Yi, Richard Orlinski, Wissam Shakut, El Saeed, Noora Al Mazrouie, and master calligraphers Ahmad Moualla, Khaled Al Saai, and  Majid Al Youssef. 

Watson-Thorp’s work has been featured on MTV, and in Women in Business, Gulf Daily News (Dubai), The National Newspaper (Abu Dhabi), Time Out Dubai, Arabian Woman and Magpie Magazine. She has donated work and time to numerous charities related to Southern Africa, and believes in the power of philanthropic art.