Born in the United States, Jessica Speckhard was raised abroad, moving between Belarus, Belgium, France and Greece until her move to New York in 2010 and then Washington DC in 2013. Her nomadic lifestyle has often served as a catalyst for her artwork, which frequently depicts travelers exploring the worlds she creates for them. She has attended several art institutions, including Parsons Paris and Parsons New York. She has participated in wide variety of group and solo shows worldwide. In 2009, she presented work alongside Louise Bourgeouis at the Bad Girls Don't Go to Heaven show, a part of Remap2 in Athens, Greece. Her first solo exhibit took place at the Adam Gallery in Kolonaki, Greece in June of 2009. Her second solo show took place a one year later as a parallel event to Athens Xclusive Designers Week. Many of her works have sold to private contemporary art collectors internationally. She works in a variety of fields, most often manipulating digital photographs and videos, as well as staging performance work. Her most notable performance piece took place at Art Athina, where she climbed inside sculptures created from salvaged trash from the streets. Speckhard's most recent solo exhibition, Urban Nirvana, which took place in October of 2010, addresses ideas of urban chaos, youth, metamorphoses, and the city as a fantasy environment with endless possibilities. Her characters, mostly children and young men and women, break the rules of their spaces as they search for enlightenment. The works relate not only to the shift between childhood and adulthood, a recurring theme in her work, but also to the current feelings of uncertainty and tension many Athenians are presently facing.

 

Education
Deree College, B.A. in Visual Arts Studies          2008-2009
Parsons Paris Foundation Year                                2007-2008
Parsons New York Summer Session                       2006
University of Maryland                                               2004-2007
Atelier Malou, Brussels, Belgium                          2004-2005
Belarussian Junior Academy of Fine Arts           1999-2000