Jessica Webster is an established artist in the South African art scene. With three acclaimed solo shows at the Goodman Gallery and a doctorate in Philosophy from Wits University, her work explores themes of trauma, resilience, and shared experience. Webster’s art has been featured in multiple group exhibitions and is held in prominent collections in Miami and Europe. She is the featured artist of the Aardklop festival in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in 2024.

This new body of work showcases Webster’s fresh exploration of humour and bald-faced fun through an intimate collection of miniature paintings that offer viewers a unique space for reflection and relief.

Diminutive yet powerful, her new works are constructed as contemporary forms of Victorian cameos. These miniatures feature abstract flows, geometric pops of colour, and caricatures of amateur porn, inviting viewers a reprieve from the weighty subjects of contemporary life.

For Webster, the containment offered by the miniature is as much a safe space for crude subjects as it may be a surreal outcome of trying to cope with the social complexity of life in the current moment.

“It is my hope that amongst the more serious and weighty subjects burdening hearts everywhere, my paintings carve out a little space for the joy of the disgraceful, the scandalous, and wicked moments, those which certainly don’t hurt anyone,” she explains. Beyond traditional boundaries of subject matter, Jessica's X-rated Miniatures are created for both physical exhibition and digital sharing, broadening its reach.