Jessica Gandolf will be exhibiting new paintings in a show called “Calming the Ocean” at Aucocisco Gallery. The show will run from September 4^th through September, 2008.

These paintings represent a new direction for Gandolf. She has turned her attention from the athletes that figured in her work for many years to a more personal iconography that features babies, bathtubs, oceans, hands and feet. The element of water, both as a source of renewal and as a source of danger is featured.

Jessica Gandolf was born in New York City in 1958. She is a graduate of Oberlin College with an MFA from Brooklyn College where she worked with Lois Dodd, Philip Pearlstein, Lennart Anderson and Lee Bontecou. Her art studies include a year at a painting academy in Paris, a couple of sessions at the Vermont Studio Center and courses at the New York Academy of Art, Pratt Institute and Cooper Union. She also worked with the Fort Mason Printmakers in San Francisco.

Gandolf is a National Endowment for the Arts Regional Visual Arts fellowship recipient. She has been awarded residencies at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and The Cummington Community for the Arts in Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited across the country, internationally and in many group shows in Maine including the Portland Museum of Art Biennial in 2001 & 2005, as well as the Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial in 2002 & 2004.

Gandolf came to Maine in 1992. She lives with her husband Lincoln Peirce and their two children in Portland. She is a Lecturer in Art at Bates College. She is also a yoga teacher at The Portland Yoga Center, Spring Harbor Hospital and at Bates College.