Jessica Bosworth Smith (b. 1989) is an artist who is interested in exploring the narrative potential of contemporary painting, interventions with found objects, and ceramics. Each piece contains exciting and unexpected elements which demands a closer look to appreciate the details; creating unusual and layered dialogues between the artist’s imagination and viewer’s. Bosworth Smith’s scenes, often depicting sumptuous interiors, eclectic exteriors, objects of interest, sprawling jungles, and cats at leisure, are an exploration of her interest in space; both familiar and fantastical.

Working primarily in gouache and using thorough visual research, the artist uses her artwork to both re-experience places she has travelled to and to weave together extravagant scenes which are neither feasible or, seemingly, practical. The artist loves to create seemingly familiar scenes through a maximalist lens, using a riot of pattern, texture, and detail. Bosworth Smith’s love of cats and the cultural significance of the trope of the “cat lady” has demarcated her paintings as zones of play where she explores themes of being alone without being lonely, disconnect between the perceptions of being single versus the lived experience of singleness, the idiosyncratic nature of “aspirational lifestyles” given the current global economy, and the slippage between the instagram version and real version of places particularly when it comes to travel.

Jessica Bosworth Smith received her BFA from Rhodes University and her Honours in Visual Studies (Illustration) from the University of Stellenbosch (Cum Laude). She was named one of the Design Indaba Emerging Creatives of 2017, was part of the Top 100 in the ABSA l’Atelier in 2017 and 2018. She has participated in the Comic Blast residency at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland 2018 and Casa Figuiera at São João Farm in Brazil 2023, and has published two books through Imagnary House. Bosworth Smith exhibits with 131 A Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa.