New Work

I suppose one could see this as a sort of companion piece to "Hailstorm"

no title yet
Oil on canvas
2 x 4 ft.
Well, still more work to do, I think.

New Work

Mike asked me why don't I paint more than one when I paint a picture. So I painted two: the first was The Commodity; this is the second. Started at the same time, but a longer painting to paint.

Probably still more to do on it.
Untitled (Inclement Weather - spaying the Servos Farm)
30 x 40
Canvas and Oil

New - Somebody Waiting For Somebody

Somebody Waiting For Somebody
Oil on canvas

Woman with Pail

2014
Woman with Pail
Oil on canvas

Man with Guitar 2: "Punk in Drublic"

2012-2014
Man with Guitar, "Punk in Drublic"
Oil on canvas

Work in Progress - The Commodity

The Commodity, Near Lock 2, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Oil on canvas
40" by 30"

Three New Pictures

Zebra escaping/ playful
Oil on canvas board
16 x 24

Cesar, portrait/ cartoon
Oil on canvas board
16x24
(work in progress)

Woman's Portrait
Oil on canvas board
16x24

Two New Pictures Taken By Mike Penner

A close observer can see the changes I made to this before my show at MIKREATIONS.

Beautiful, isn't it--aren't they . . . I consider these the first two pictures taken of my paintings that should have a life of their own. Thank-you Mike, the proprietor, the photographer.

Some Juvenilia - Alas

This is very early. I must have been about ten. You may remember a popularity in "Duck" this and that T-shirts in Ontario around that time. An homage to Howard the Duck, which from the creator's standpoint was a legal matter at the time.

This is another early 'once upon a time'. Note the popularity of extra pockets, the coat that is of course rolled up from the wrists and the apparently normal practice of cats stuffing their hands down their pants. I was probably saying "radical" around this time. . . . Back to the Future II was probably my favorite film.

We had a great mascot in high school, an eagle. There was an extraordinary picture of it on the gym wall. A real superior talent. I consoled myself with doodling a hundred mascots doing away with themselves. This is a later attempt, probably grade 11 or 12 my graduating year. My favorite comic book was Spawn. I drew the death of the school's eagle in all the yearbooks handed to me that year. Also, you may notice I don't know which side the heart is on, that is, if that funny lump of coal impaled there is indeed a heart.

I remember drawing this for a radio show in a convenience store in Queenston Heights. This is the first of many show posters I did while in university. Depravity was in.

MASQUE and five others

Masque

 

 

 

Oil on canvas board

16 x 24

Relationship With Moon

Oil on canvas board

 Nude with pail

Oil on canvas

(in progress)

 Frozen Canal

Oil on canvas board

(in progress)

 Seedling

Oil on canvas board

 

Untitled Painting On Progress

Oil on canvas board

DECEMBER - FEBRUARY SHOW!

PRESENTING

“LUMINENTS, 2”

OIL PAINTINGS BY JESSE LEPP

HERE AT RISE ABOVE

in St. Catharines, Ontario

December 2013 - February 2014

“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:

they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you;

yea, when ye make prayers, I will not hear: Your hands are full with blood.”

—from The Book of the Prophet Isaiah

“No; I only eat food.”

—my nephew (age 3) on eating Christmas turkey

Artist's Statement

You know how I respect and regard vegans! I'll tell you a dream I had. It was your basic zombie movie and I was the protagonist, like the sort of one you'd find in World War Z or, more mercifully, Pontypool, a kind of man (or woman, as the case may be in a dream) thrust to the forefront of an epidemic, only, in my dream, the zombies were all gourmets – which was, one would think, weird. Gourmets seemed the special point of the plot. Yes, the vegan zombies were the best, for obvious reasons: they would collect hair and nail clippings and make, I don't know, a toe-jam goulash . . . most people I met, though, were 'ethical', meaning just that they would merely take a non-life-essential limb or organ and let you get by. These 'ethicists' survived mostly on a black market of appendices and tonsils if they were rich, an arm or a leg or a finger if they were poor . . . the carnists though, they were a different story. They'd set up a spit and roast you alive for twelve hours and that would be the end of you. Fat fizzing on the fire to satiate their bacchanalian enjoyment of appetite for appetite's sake. Almost—almost—like the ancient practice of sacrifice. Yeah . . . so, I had this dream as I slept, after I was thinking of this show, here, at Rise Above, for a few days—a few weeks ago now. I even thought up a good title if I ever decide to write the screenplay: Goremet.

To feast is too bogged down in the Bacchanalian, or the Bahktinian, if you like . . . whereas meat eating has more to do with having foodstuff that can move of its own accord (with a little coaxing), which is, you could say, of little relevance now, now that mass exodus is no longer an expected part of Canadian life;—whereas meat eating is too survive without proper food, which is strange in a time wherein horticulture is a perfect science, a real art. So, 'to feast': co-opted by the quintessential 'invading army' (that great American calling). . . an army's food (so you'd best like it), an army's market. It seems—I see clearly perhaps that veganism is another promise of peace . . . it is believable.

Johnny is the better fisherman of the two of us pictured in “Infrastructure,” which is a painting of a Dam near Biscotasing. I remember, I had had this romantic ideal to eat a fish I had caught myself upon deciding to accept John's invitation to accompany him on one of his Northern excursions. Ah, Northern Ontario! It would be the best fish I ever ate: for ethical reasons, you see. Oh, I caught the fish . . . took it back to the cabin, took a picture of me and it. John, though, said, “So, you want me to kill one of my friends?” In an insane act of pedagogy he filleted the fish while it was alive and flapping, presumably to put into my heart the hurt I was doing to the world and to it by wishing to taste something, I don't know what (je ne sais quoi, I think it's called). That's John's boat and gas-can in “Esker”, a place he told me about where you could find the holes in gourd sized black rocks made by diamonds as they twist their oyster like singularity into all time. “Dr. Dahlah”, as John liked to be called, remains to me a man with 'impeccable judgement'.

. . . really, here, I have to say thanks to Kasia for suggesting this show to me and to her friends, Brian and Kelsy of Rise Above for their better than merely ethical business ideal. The food here is delicious, is it not? Living things that don't mind not minding, eh?

So long as this restaurant is a good place to eat I will be heartened. Nobody says we are at peace, anyone who does probably . . . well, we find peace where we can . . .

Jesse Lepp

N-O-T-L

leppjessearnold@gmail.com

LUMINENTS

The Show:

One Dozen Roses	$400.00 / oil on canvas / unframed
The Copse, Southern Ont.	1000 (framed)
Tiger Lilies	400 (acrylic on styrofoam, framed)
Eskar, Bisco., Ont.	500
The Dreamers	1500 (framed)
Bacchus's Theft of the Stars over Toronto	350
The Soul, The Vine	100
Infrastructure, Bisco., Ont.	380
Probability of Winter, NOTL, Ont.	1100
Irrigation, NOTL, Ont.	450 (framed)

 

2013 IN REVIEW