SSB would like to introduce you to Jasmine Hirst, our current Artist-in-Residence.
Jasmine has been a practicing and exhibiting artist since 1981, and now works and lives in New York City. Her work is polyvalent in approach, including artist-run collectives, long-running collaborations with Penny Arcade and Lydia Lunch, photography, design and filmmaking. The recurring theme of her practice is her submersion into the darkest recesses of humanity’s most ferocious wounds: abuse, broken hearts, suicide and murder. Her work attempts to make sense of the senselessness and brutality of this world. Jasmine has worked as art therapist with Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Assault, culminating in an exhibition of their work at Wollongong Art Gallery. She has also worked as private art therapist for Wards of the State, and for homeless women in Sydney. For years she dedicated herself to make work about the endemic nature of the sexual abuse of children and women in our society.
Her films are collected by the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative of the New American Cinema Group and have screened to great acclaim at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art; London’s Horse Hospital Gallery; Lincoln Center, NY; and the Sydney and Melbourne Underground Film Festivals. Her work was the subject of a lecture presented at Columbia University about leading contemporary American experimental filmmakers. She has exhibited her photographic art internationally, including the Casa Del Pane in Milan, Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Illuminated Metropolis Gallery in NY and AMP Gallery in Provincetown. Hirst’s footage of Aileen Wuornos (portrayed by Charlize Theron in the film “Monster”) on death row has appeared on Reel Crime/Real Story on the ID TV network
Jasmine collaborates with Lydia Lunch on photographic and film work and exhibited with Lunch at Lethal Amounts Gallery in LA. Her work is in many private collections, including Madonna’s, and her images of Lydia Lunch, Penny Arcade, Sandra Bernhard, Nan Goldin, Courtney Love, Vali Myers and Patti Smith have been published in numerous art and music magazines. Hirst has made music videos for Lydia Lunch, Andy Shernoff, Retrovirus, Tequila Mockingbird, Chris Rael, The Phantom Family Halo and Church of Betty.
Her solo shows in New York include Black Blood, A Night of Jasmine Hirst’s Photographic Art and Films at the NY Filmmakers’ Coop, It’s Been A Hell Of A Life: A Night of Films by Jasmine Hirst, Le Petit Versailles, and Underground Superstars at the Gene Frankel Theater. Her life and work was featured in the ARI Remix Project, an archive of artists from 1980-1990 in Australia @ http://remix.org.au/artist-profile-jasmine-hirst/
jasminehirst.com
Notes from Jasmine Hirst on SSB AWAY
“I have never been afforded the opportunity in my life to be alone and away from the pressures of the material world, so that I can go within and fully focus on my pure core of creativity. Like most artists, just surviving in this society takes up most of my time. This retreat is an incredible and precious gift from SSB and I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity. I long for the way I made art in the early pre-computer 1980’s, when I was a young punk living in the inner city and free from being conscious of the Viewer. Then I made art for the pure joy of making art. We all did. None of us cared about exhibitions or becoming famous. We lived and breathed art and music and books. I plan to return to this state of creating on my retreat. To write and draw and paint and take photos that aren’t for work or exhibitions. Without distractions I will be able to fully experience both the monsters and the light that exist within my psyche.”