Jessica Pearless attended Auckland University's Elam School of
Fine Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002, before
taking up a position as Manager of the Fine Art Department at
renowned Auckland auction house Webb's.
Pearless' work communicates ideas of visual hierarchy in
creative disciplines like architecture, furniture and spatial
design, by highlighting certain traits and emblems of these
endeavours in the aesthetic context of painting, mixed media and
installation works. In doing so, Pearless draws the
commercially-bounded ideas of taste prevalent in these industries
into an artistic context, removing their functionality or intended
effect and holding them up as aesthetic elements in their own
right.
Alongside her role as a panel member in discussions on Art and
Urban Design at the annual Auckland Festival, Pearless is a
prolific artist, having held numerous solo shows since her
graduation and participating in group exhibitions throughout New
Zealand and internationally. These include her role in the
production of Khromatik, a collaborative site specific installation
in central Hong Kong and more recent installation work at the 2008
Bridge Art Fair in Berlin. Pearless' work is held in public
collections in New Zealand and Hong Kong and in private collections
in Australasia, Asia and Europe. Recently, Pearless gained a
Postgraduate Scholarship from the University of Auckland to study
for her Masters in Fine Arts at Elam and currently divides her time
between her study, artistic practice and her role at Webb's.