Jesse Thompson

I first met Jesse Thompson at the Yering Station Sculpture Award. She was interning with curator Ewen, and I was serving as one of the judges. Even then—before the body of work gathered here had begun to take shape—I was struck by her clarity of thought, her presence, and the fierce intelligence underpinning her observations. That encounter stayed with me. Later, when Jesse joined & Gallery as an intern, it felt only natural to encourage her toward a solo exhibition, and specifically toward developing her instinctive gift for portraiture. What has emerged is far more than a first solo show; it is an act of courage, a deeply personal archive, and a testament to the transformative power of art-making.

This collection of portraits stands in memory of Jesse’s mother, whose absence reverberates through every canvas. The works explore the hollowing that follows profound loss—the way grief carves a person from the inside out, leaving an unrecognisable self in its wake. Healing, here, is never linear. Instead, it unfolds in increments: a slow rebuilding, a tentative regrowth, a radical reorientation of who one is allowed to become. Jesse’s portraits sit inside this threshold space between collapse and renewal.

The exhibition title emerges from a journal passage written months earlier, a stream of thought so raw it becomes its own kind of poetry. Within it lies the truth of early grief: the inability to breathe deeply; the fear of opening cupboards still holding a life interrupted; the scent you can no longer bear; the paperwork that swallows you; the name you cannot speak. And within the same passage, a quieter truth—the way grief insists you continue loving someone whose absence remakes your world. This body of work embraces that burden of love with startling honesty.

Across these paintings, themes of estrangement and connection intertwine:

• the grief that follows the loss of someone beloved

• the complicated terrain of relationships that both anchor and wound

• the isolating, necessary work of self-love

• and the bravery required to move forward while still honouring what is mortal, and therefore fragile.

Materially, the works carry this vulnerability in their very making. The raw, sometimes intentionally unfinished surfaces reflect the precariousness of life and the hesitations of the grieving mind. The handmade linen grounds the paintings in tenderness—an analogue to touch, care, and memory. Jesse’s colour palette is chosen intuitively; pigments are selected by emotional gravity, by the tug of certain memories, or by the resonance of personal relationships. The result is a visual language that feels at once instinctive and precise.

I Don’t Breathe Deep Enough Anymore is Jesse Thompson’s first solo exhibition, but it holds the weight, honesty, and eloquence of an artist already deeply attuned to the inner landscapes of human experience. These portraits are not merely depictions of faces—they are cartographies of loss, devotion, and the slow, miraculous work of finding oneself again.

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