Jessie Horning lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she currently works as Adjunct Faculty teaching printmaking, drawing, and art history classes at Ohio State University, Columbus College of Art and Design, and Capital University. She also works as the OSU Print Shop Lab Technician.
In 2011 She earned her BFA in Printmaking from Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, then worked as the Teaching Assistant of Printmaking at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She completed her MFA in Printmaking at Ohio State University in 2017.
Horning is committed to utilizing printmaking practices that are sustainable for the health of the artist and the environment. Her interest in sustainability was sparked by her experience working at an organic garden where she became attuned to the complexity and fragility of organic ecological systems.
Currently, my studio practice serves as an essential reprieve from the "new normal" of the on-going pandemic. One of the most significant changes to my daily routine is increased screen time. I perceive the digital screens of my laptop and phone as paradoxes; these screens are portals to information and people that allow me to be intellectually and emotionally connected while being physically detached.
My work in my studio is the opposite of this type of interaction; it is tangible, tactile, and direct. Actions in my studio practice involve drawing, printing, cutting, arranging, and folding. Being online feels like inhabiting boundless space, but my prints and drawings have clearly defined edges, and they eventually reach a point where they are finished and can be set aside. For the foreseeable future, my studio practice is a grounding presence in a world that feels very unpredictable.
I use drawing and printmaking processes to extract and translate intangible images from my digital photo archives into the tangible materials of ink, graphite, and paper.
In my work, paper functions as a collection space for marks inspired by the iconography of my personal photo archives, as well as the digital interfaces of the computer screens that I navigate to access these images. My drawings reference imagery made by hand, camera, and computer, prompting the viewer to consider the type of image that is produced when visual elements from disparate types of viewing experiences exist within the same space.