Young artist has world at her feet

By Casey Neill
ARTIST Jessica Graham is returning home to the hills for her first solo show before jetsetting across the globe.
The 22-year-old will present Randomisations at the Mount Evelyn Exhibition Space until 29 April.
“It’s just a whole bunch of three years’ work, of eclectic stuff,” she said.
Ms Graham was excited and nervous about unveiling her work in her hometown.
“I feel sick, but it’s good,” she said.
She now lives in Footscray but friends from her former high school, Lilydale Heights College, will come and check out the quirky, colourful works.
Ms Graham paints and draws anywhere and everywhere, from home to the pub.
“I see art everywhere and I make art out of anything,” she said.
“I’ve not been one for writing. I’ve always liked drawing better.”
She often uses recycled pieces of paper, old Beat Magazines and other street press.
“Whoever makes them puts a lot of effort into them,” she said.
“It’s all going to get thrown out otherwise.”
The exhibition also features colourful robots Ms Graham drew at work.
“Because I feel like a robot all the time,” she said.
She finds creating art relaxing.
“It turns my brain off. I don’t think when I do it,” she said.
“Things just come together and I don’t even know how.”
Ms Graham hopes the exhibition will raise some cash for a global backpacking jaunt.
“I’ll continue picking up pieces of paper and making art out of them and drawing random things,” she said.
She has deferred her studies in Visual Art at Victoria University until she returns from her trip.
“I want to be an art teacher for little kids when I properly grow up, when I get bored of having fun,” she said.
“I’m more fluid, I don’t really like set times like ‘you should be painting this now and this now’. I did the opposite.”
“I see that teapot but it’s not really what I want to draw, so I’d turn it into a dragon or something.”
“Art for me is meant to be something that you can’t really force. It has to make you happy.”
Mount Evelyn Exhibition Space is located in The Station House, 50 Wray Crescent.