This is a drawing I created to celebrate my 23rd birthday. It is the first large-scale piece I have completed since graduating.

While creating this piece, I was (and still am) dreaming about cake, hugging, buttons, bubble gum, pen pals, brown butter cookies with flaky salt, leg hair, bunny evolution, confetti, a knight in shining armor, giant Costco chicken pot pie, knitting color work charts, and feeling like an only child for the first time in my life (all at once).

JESS HUAN HU (b. 2002) (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist based in New Hampshire. She makes paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, textiles, and installations that explore how dreaming as a ritual expands time for a disabled body. Across mediums, they work with color, illuminating cosmic landscapes and magnifying moments of magic that exist in daily routine.

These two paintings, Body Prayer I and Body Prayer II, represent my undergraduate thesis, exhibited in the Williams College Museum of Art.

Throughout my body of work, I examine the disabled body as a site for violence and discomfort. My body is constantly healing itself, skin and mind repeatedly scarring over. Living in crip time, I see dreaming as a way of offering my disabled body expanded time.

 

In Dreamtime, lounging, twisting, and spreading in the nude, the disabled body becomes an erotic subject, deserving of touch. The body disrupts normative expectations, so the viewer stares. In that period of prolonged attention, the monstrous body begins to shift. It does not become acceptable. It becomes undeniable. It becomes sacred.

During the collage process, legible material from this world is obscured to create portals to another.

Through painting, the canvas becomes a site of care. I meticulously apply delicate tissue paper to the canvas with my fingertips, as if caressing my own skin. I lavish the figure’s contours with the brush, not to conceal but to tend. I gaze back at myself, crawl on top of the painted surface, and feel the press of body onto body.

In this wearable sculpture, I perform a rehearsal flight to Heaven. 

I devote myself to the creation of this disguise not because I believe in a Heaven, but because if a Heaven does exist, I need my loved ones to make it there. I will do whatever it takes to ensure their journey because my care for the people in my life transcends personal belief and beckons no hesitation; it is the most fundamental truth I know.

 

Hand quilting demands slow, repetitive movements that expand time so that dreamscapes may emerge. While the disabled body adapts to discomfort, it creates quilted worlds that transcend earthly architectural logic, allowing them to exist as eternal Heavens.

In this neighborhood I imagine caring for the people I love forever.

Similarly, the repetitive rituals of papermaking and printmaking unfold within the continuum between crip time and Dreamtime, allowing for the processing of grief through labor.

As I continue making art post-grad, I am excited to explore non-toxic materials and expand upon the worlds I have already created.

I want to continue creating artwork that honors my love for the objects around me and all of my dreams as they continue to change.

This indigo-dyed mokume work took me over 100 hours to complete in undergrad, while I was taking three other classes. 

I am looking forward to working at a slower pace, no longer bound by impending deadlines. :-)

Thank you for taking the time to look at my art! :-)

You can find more about me and my work on my website jesshuanhu.com and my Instagram @jesshuanhu