Cross Purposes

Jess began making art after a brief career as a scientist. Disillusioned by the direction of science and the threat of nuclear devastation, he chose art "as an antidote to the scientific method." Originally inspired by Dada and Surrealist collages, in this work the artist mixed pieces from two old jigsaw puzzles that he discovered were cut from the same pattern. One is a biblical illustration, the other a landscape; one image reads vertically, the other requires the viewer to look sideways. As the title suggests, the artist's desire to counter rationalism and modern alienation with spiritualism and mysticism are revealed in this work.